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Copyrighted 1902 by 
The Pelham Press 






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CONTENTS 







Page 


I 


An Epilogue 


I 


II 


The Princess and her Comedy 


33 


III 


The White Garden 


57 


IV 


Juan de Castro's Golden Week 


73 


V 


"And in the Fire of Spring" 


iog 


VI 


An Experiment in Souls 


127 


VII 


A Question of Motive 


141 


VIII 


The Day of Judgment 


157 


IX 


Shadows 


177 


X 


Pierre of the Woods 


191 



AN EPILOGUE 



DISCORDS 



an epilogue 





€* 




CONFESS/' said the 
Distinguished Diplo- 
mat, smiling down the 
well-set table at his 
well-dressed guests, " I 
confess to a foolish and 
ill-balanced love of the 
romantic and the pic- 
turesque! It has car- 
ried me into all sorts of weaknesses and many 
real troubles, but I can't seem to outgrow 
it! Give me a romance, and I can forgive 
anything.' ' 

His genial laugh, the laugh of a man whose 
autumn of life was as cheerful as most peo- 
ple's midsummer, was infectious. Even Lady 
Harvey smiled a response to his good humour. 
She, — be it interpolated, — was a fair, beauti- 
ful woman, hardly more than a girl in 
years, and only recently married to good- 
looking, conservative Archie Harvey of the 



DISCORDS 

Dragoons. Colonel Sir Archibald Harvey 
they put it in Burke, but no one ever dreamed 
of calling him anything but Archie. His 
bride was very blonde and very quiet and 
very cold, and it was no secret that she did 
not love Archie ; indeed, most people agreed 
that she was too essentially a "good 
woman" to ever really love any man. 

"That's an unsafe taste of yours," ban- 
tered Regie Craig, a young journalist of the 
dilettante order. " Romance is the most un- 
stable of all guides for a man's principles ! " 

"Romance!" retorted the Distinguished 
Diplomat, scornfully. " My boy, you do not 
even know what it is ! You are all too 
busy, or too refined, or too scientific, or too 
something, nowadays, to experience a grand 
passion or know a violent emotion except 
by proxy ! And when one does give you a 
case of love-at-first-sight, or good, old-time 
vengeance, or ' all for love and the world 
well lost/ — or any other example of the 
adventurous impulses, — you mutter ■ Shock- 
ing ! ■ or ' Savage ! ' and think you have dis- 
posed of the subject ! M 

" You are really shocking Lady Harvey 
already! " laughed the Brunette at the Dis- 



DISCORDS 

tinguished Diplomat's right. Lady Harvey 
had courteously assumed the responsibilities 
of hostess for the evening, and sat opposite 
the host. She smiled gently and appealingly 
down at him, with eyes as gravely innocent 
as those of a child, while Archie beamed his 
pride in her. 

"Aren't things at cross-purposes in life?" 
murmured the Actress of Character Parts who 
sat next to the young Journalist. " The Har- 
vey woman would forget Archie's existence 
if people didn't keep asking them together. 
Yet he adores her as much as though she 
were not his wife ! And there's Lily Cole, — 
the dark girl, you know, — who would have 
gone out and currycombed his horses with 
pleasure! " 

"Fact?" 

"Fact it is." 

And they went on with their dinner. 

"Yes," the Distinguished Diplomat con- 
tinued, " I don't doubt that if I cited one or 
two of the instances which have particularly 
interested me in my career, you would all 
look upon me as a horrid old man, with no 
conscience, and a simply scandalous taste 
for meddling! " 



DISCORDS 

Lady Harvey looked soft and intoxicating 
deprecation. 

" Oh ! " breathed the Actress of Character 
Parts, very gently, " she can do it after all, 
eh?" 

"What?" 

"Flirt. Look at that glance! Dear me, 
she could teach a great deal to us cruder 
artists!" 

"Why not try us?" suggested Archie, 
with an inspiration of purely transitory 
intelligence. " Tell us one of your instances, 
or whatever you call 'em, and see what we 
all think of it." 

"That would be weakness and bad man- 
ners," declared the Distinguished Diplomat, 
modestly, "to monopolize my own table in 
that fashion." 

But — perhaps because the guests were at 
cross-purposes, if not actually badly chosen 
and assorted — they insisted. General con- 
versation, not dialogues, seemed desired, so 
the host obediently took the lead and they 
listened with as much attention as they 
cared to spare from the really excellent 
dinner. 



DISCORDS 

" Since you are kind enough to make a 
point of it," he said, "I will promptly im- 
agine myself a sort of narrator, such as we 
come across in the old tales, and taking one 
remembered romance at random, I will unfold 
to you as much of it as I am lucky enough to 
know. It is a brief glimpse or indication, 
nothing more, — but the situation interested 
me, and you may be able to fill in the blanks 
from your imaginations. 

" Some years ago, in the course of the 
pursuance of my profession in St. Peters- 
burg, I met a curious and interesting man. I 
will not mention his name, I will call him 
merely the Prince, — both in courtesy to his 
title, and to lose none of the permissible 
romantic accessories to the situation ! We 
did not readily become intimate, for he in 
some ways repelled even while he attracted 
me. However, in spite of many definite 
causes for disliking him, he did fascinate me 
and absorb my attention when I was in his 
company. He possessed to an extreme de- 
gree the magnetic power, and when I tell 
you that he flattered my vanity by appearing 
to care for my company, in spite of the great 
difference in our ages, (a difference vastly in 



DISCORDS 

his favour) and further that he was the most 
daring adventurer whom I have ever met, 
you will possibly understand my interest in 
him. 

" He was one of the handsomest men, I 
firmly believe, ever born. I will not describe 
him, but will merely tell you that he alone, 
among the many persons pointed out to me 
at various times as deserving that compari- 
son, was really like a Scandinavian god. 
He had an extreme love of luxury, an animal 
enjoyment of all sensuous things, together 
with a savage power of endurance, and he 
was quite unscrupulous. His chief passion 
was jewels, and he owned some of the rarest 
and most unusual gems, I believe, that have 
ever been in any private collection. Among 
his possessions was a jewel which he used 
to call his Amourette, an absurdly frivolous 
name for so wonderful a stone, but, as I 
must tell you, he was a mass of perversities 
and whimsicalities. The Amourette was an 
immense emerald of extraordinary colour 
and lustre. He pointed out to me an infini- 
tesimal flaw which slightly lessened its 
market value, but did not in the smallest 
degree impair its beauty to a connoisseur. 

6 



DISCORDS 

He often told me that he was keeping the 
Amourette for a woman, — the woman whom 
he considered worthy to wear it. ■ I 've 
never found her yet/ he declared, 'but when 
you miss the emerald, mon ami, that, you 
may know, is where it has gone/ In the 
course of time, I drifted away from St. 
Petersburg, and I did not see the Prince or 
his collection of jewels or the Amourette for 
a year. Then I met him in a curious way, 
one late afternoon in Paris. 

" I was walking near the Arc de Triomphe, 
it being an hour when I often went out to 
watch faces, and invent appropriate romances 
to fit groups or incidents which came in my 
way. I soon became interested in a woman 
who was walking just in front of me. She 
did not look like the type of woman who 
would be apt to be wandering about Paris 
alone, only a short time before dusk. At 
least, let me qualify that: her dress and 
bearing led me to believe that her family 
would not approve of promiscuous wander- 
ing of this sort, and I shrewdly guessed that 
she had left her maid somewhere behind her. 
I am afraid that I stared very hard at the 
lady's back, for it was a very graceful one ; 



DISCORDS 

and I like pretty women whose figures and 
clothes suit each other. I approved of the 
way she walked, and I also liked her splen- 
did, sunny, golden hair, and the angle on 
which her small head was set on her very 
round and well-proportioned body. I am 
sorry that I cannot describe her gown; I 
have a dim impression that it was of some 
nondescript colour, — gray or violet or some- 
thing of that sort, and I distinctly remember 
that her hat was black and absurd as to 
shape, though I don't doubt it was becoming 
to her face. I should much like to have 
seen the latter ! 

"My narrative is growing longer than I 
had intended it to be. You must really for- 
give me, but my tongue runs away with me 
in matters of reminiscence ! While I was 
strolling quietly along and making quite 
casual and idle conjectures as to the station 
and identity of the fair-haired lady in the 
pretty clothes who walked in front of me, I 
saw a rather smart-looking turn-out coming 
down the street rapidly. The horse was 
very good, the cart all that could be desired, 
the livery of the groom behind was perfect, 
and the man who drove was an excellent 

8 



DISCORDS 

match for the rest ; and that is by no means 
a matter of course, you know ! He was big, 
good-looking, and properly dressed, — and 
imagine my surprise in recognizing him to 
be my St. Petersburg friend, the Prince ! 

" He did not notice me, indeed I must 
frankly say that he only seemed to notice one 
person or thing in his surroundings. That 
was the blonde lady in front of me. She had 
stopped, by the bye, and stood looking at 
the approaching turn-out, — which was com- 
ing at a much slower rate of speed now ; the 
Prince was pulling up, all the time with his 
eyes fixed upon her. Let me confess to my 
usual curiosity in a possibly romantic climax ; 
I seated myself unostentatiously on a bench, 
and I watched the performance with as cas- 
ual an air as I could command. 

" My friend pulled up at the curb, still 
staring in a way which surprised me and 
quite upset my ideas concerning his tradi- 
tionally unimpeachable good manners. Then 
he gave the lines to the man and alighted. 
The girl started away from him as he ap- 
proached, but he stopped her with an appeal- 
ing sort of gesture. Then they talked. 
Naturally I did not try to listen; even my 



DISCORDS 

sins in the cause of romance have their 
limit. I gazed down the street and watched 
some gamins fighting in a gutter, and I kept 
my face turned away from the Prince and, I 
feared, his ultimate recognition of me. Sud- 
denly I heard him say : ' Call me Fate, — 
Chance, — the Unknown, — what you will! 
What does it matter ? 'What do names mat- 
ter ? What does anything matter ? You are 
brave enough to defy convention, — another 
woman would not be, but I know from your 
face that you are. Will you come ? ' 

" I did not hear her answer, and I carefully 
avoided looking in their direction. So in the 
one moment when I think her face was turned 
toward me, I did not see her. I wished after- 
ward that I had looked at her well, and tried 
to analyze the charm which was the Prince's 
bane and rapture and ultimate undoing. After 
another short conversation, he raised his hat 
and fell back ; she walked on quickly, and 
then, just as he turned to enter his trap once 
more, he saw me. I instantly rose and came 
forward, not trying to ignore what I had been 
looking at. 

"'I have been out seeking romance, as 
usual/ I remarked, by way of greeting. ■ But 

10 



DISCORDS 

I got more than I bargained for ! Where did 
you drop from ? ' 

"The flush which had risen to his fore- 
head when he first saw me died away some- 
what. He held out his hand with a heartiness 
which, knowing his variable and contradic- 
tory nature, I cannot approximately estimate 
as being sincere or feigned. 

" ' My dear fellow/ he said, « one is sure of 
a certain number of surprises in this world ! 
One begins to get bored, and to think that 
nothing ever happens ; and behold ! whole 
chains of happenings follow promptly on the 
conviction ! I have been telling myself that 
a trip to the East and an investigation of 
hashish was the only fresh variety of sensa- 
tion which I could command ; and now I am 
taken with a grand passion on the spur of 
the moment, and I am surprised, — positively 
surprised, in my blase attitude of mind, — by 
your appearance ! ' 

"Any other man would have irritated me 
by his affectations in speech, but there was 
the fellow's old influence over me, back again 
as strong as ever. 

" ' I have been watching a chapter of your 
grand passion / " I said, rather shamefacedly. 

ii 



DISCORDS 

" He sighed and smiled response. 

"'The first chapter, dear man!' he said. 
' But why waste time here ? You will drive 
back with me to my rooms and dine, and we 
will try to bridge over the time of our separa- 
tion by a little retrospective explanation and 
narrative ! ' 

" Of course I went with him ; I had noth- 
ing on for the evening, except an Embassy re- 
ception, which might be postponed into an 
indefinite lateness of hour. On the way I 
enquired for the Amourette. 

"'In excellent spirits,' he told me. 'As 
fine in colour and copious of brilliancy as 
ever! I am inclined to think that the 
Amourette and I will soon part company ! ' 

" ' Not debts/ I hazarded, ' or a woman ? ' 

" ' Debts ! ' He laughed long at that. ' A 
woman, — yes! I have at last seen some- 
one to whom I think the emerald would be 
becoming ! ' 

"Our dinner was one of those very brief, 
very perfect affairs which are to ordinary 
meals what orchids are to plebeian daisies. 
Over it we talked of everything on earth 
except the blonde lady of the Arc de 
Triomphe. 

12 



DISCORDS 

"He told me of various curious events 
which had occurred in his curious life since 
our last meeting. He described a trip which 
he had taken in the interests of detective 
work, and which had ended in the recovery 
of an important official paper ; he told me of 
a gambling establishment run under cover 
of a fashionable private house, and of the 
woman who was used as a decoy there ; he 
edified me by accounts of several of his 
later escapades, all of them interesting, most 
of them not fit for repetition here, even 
if I chose to lengthen out this long, and I 
doubt not tedious, narrative. Your faces 
disclaim ennui, yet I am nevertheless doubt- 
ful of my wisdom in pursuing my subject to 
the end. However, I have begun and I will 
finish. 

" In the course of time, I reminded my 
friend of his allusion to the Amourette, and 
expressed a desire to see it again. It was 
instantly forthcoming, and held out to me, — 
gleaming up, like the lustre that shows 
between the big green waves when the sun 
is shining, from the white velvet of its box. 
The Prince kept it always in a tiny silver 
case, velvet-lined and shaped like a bonbon- 

13 



DISCORDS 

nidre, and he was very apt to have it in an 
inner pocket where, in fact, he had it now. 

'" It is as wonderful as ever,' I declared, — 
an idiotic remark, but the gem always fasci- 
nated me. ' It would look well on some 
woman's neck, would it not?' 

" • Provided the neck were of the requisite 
whiteness and form,' he laughed, 'and par- 
ticularly if the face topping it were as fair as 
a pale tea-rose, and the hair red-gold. 1 

" ( Come ! ' I could not help saying, 'tell 
me something of your little affairs, an incident 
in which I was so indiscreet as to witness a 
few hours ago. I am morally, or unmorally, 
certain that you are at this instant picturing 
the Amourette glowing in the bosom of that 
very lady with whom you were talking so 
ardently.' 

"'Why deny it?' he said recklessly, slip- 
ping the silver box back into his pocket. 
' She is a young goddess, an Aphrodite, a 
Here, a ' 

'"I am sure of it ! ' I interrupted hastily. 
' But when did you meet her, and who is she ? ' 

" ' I met her/ he said, with a queer smile, 
' near the Arc de Triomphe, this afternoon ; 
and you know as much about her as I do.' 

M 



DISCORDS 

" I gasped at this. I was prepared for 
almost any confession of insanity on the 
part of my friend, the Prince, but this was 
beyond the limit of ordinary belief. Still, he 
was capable of it; this I acknowledged to 
myself, even while I gasped. 

"'Do you seriously mean to tell me,' I 
said, 'that the woman with whom I heard 
you talking, and with whom I believe that I 
heard you making some sort of an appoint- 
ment or arrangement, is a complete stranger 
to you ? ■ 

" He smiled, rather sardonically. 

"'Dear friend/ he said sweetly, 'I mean 
to tell you nothing seriously. Nevertheless 
the lady is a stranger to me — unless you will 
permit me to except in my dreams ! ' 

" He proceeded to further astonish me by 
analyzing for my benefit, and with an elo- 
quence and an introspective dexterity which 
was remarkable in its way, the nature of his 
passion for the beautiful unknown. He said 
calmly that he believed her to be similarly 
attracted, so to speak, emotionally. He had 
induced her, he explained, to consent to go 
with him for a week or two to a little box 
he had hired in Normandy, and she was to 

*5 



DISCORDS 

meet him at the station the next morning at 
seven minutes after eleven. Allow me to 
state here, even if it is lacking in discretion, 
that my amazement was not in the least 
caused by my friend's proposed visit to Nor- 
mandy with an unknown lady, that being, I 
must confess, the most ordinary and custom- 
ary performance for him, possible to imagine. 
But, feeling confident that the woman was 
a lady in point of fact as well as of courtesy, 
and that her bearing was distinctly that 
produced by rank and breeding, I was aston- 
ished. The Prince's affairs had comprised 
a variety of stations in life, and had been 
carried on in diverse ways, but this calm 
proposal to carry away a young and well- 
born girl to his Normandy box, without the 
formality of discovering her name or dis- 
closing his, capped the climax in the list of 
all his escapades. His next remark showed 
that he perceived the peculiar points of the 
matter himself. 

11 ■ She is evidently a lady/ he said. ■ Could 
you see that from the back of her head ? 
Also, allow me to inform you, she cannot be 
more than eighteen. Am I a blackguard, 
mon ami?' 

16 



DISCORDS 

"'Rather, I suppose/ I said, but I could 
not help laughing. ' However, if she wants 
to go with you, I should think you were 
quite exonerated. What a young devil she 
must be ! ' 

" ' Every woman who amounts to anything 
has a spice of the devil,' he observed, tran- 
quilly, but I think he hardly liked my char- 
acterization. This, too, was a novelty in him. 

I knew his opinion of le beau sexe in general. 

I I imagine from what she said that she is 
visiting friends here, and that her family ex- 
pect her to join them in England in a few 
days.' 

"« Oh,— English?' 

" ' Very English. That is, in all save her 
impulses.' 

" 'And her power of yielding to them,' I 
remarked, drily; for I knew that British 
maidens yield to temptation about as readily 
as British youths refrain from pheasant- 
shooting. 'She must be a curious specimen.' 

" * I have already told you she was a god- 
dess,' he said with a laugh. After which he 
resolutely changed the subject, and I was 
obliged to content myself with generalities 
until the time for my reception came, and 

17 



DISCORDS 

I betook myself in the direction of the 
Embassy. 

" < I shall not see you then for two weeks/ 
I said, in parting. 

"'No, not for two weeks!' He laughed 
a little, and waved me a good-bye. I went 
my way, more interested in the matter and 
less shocked than a respectable member of 
society and the diplomatic corps should 
confess ! I had a curious notion that I 
should hear from my erratic Prince in a day 
or two. I was not disappointed. In thirty- 
six hours a brief note postmarked at a small 
town in Normandy reached me. In effect, 
the epistle ran as follows : 

" « In the hurry of starting, my dear friend, 
we omitted to send three very important 
telegrams : One to Mademoiselle's family, 
one to Mademoiselle's maid, who is visiting 
her mother in a Paris Faubourg some- 
where, and one to Mademoiselle's friend in 
Cherbourg. Be good enough to send all 
three, which I enclose. It is necessary, as 
you will perceive, that they should come 
from Paris ! Also, please be good enough to 
send a second message to Mademoiselle's 
family in a week's time, containing the brief 

18 



DISCORDS 

statement : ' Am well — leaving for home 
next week.' A thousand thanks, mon ami! 
You are our good angel, and Mademoiselle, 
did I confide to her your assistance, would 
thank you as affectionately as does your 

most devoted " 

"There his name was signed. The en- 
closures were three duly written telegrams. 
The names and addresses inscribed on each 
are immaterial, and with one exception I 
have forgotten them. Suffice it to say that 
one explained to Mademoiselle's family that 
she was going to visit ' Lucille ' for two 
weeks ; one told « Lucille ' that she regretted 
she could not visit her; the third directed 
Mademoiselle's maid to extend her visit to 
her mother until further notice, as Made- 
moiselle had no immediate need of her. They 
were all signed by initials, — M. L. D., I think. 
Dear friends, what should I have done ? In 
the cause of propriety, which is the antith- 
esis of romance, I should indignantly have 
refused to smooth M. L. D.'s path of wrong- 
doing, or to embroil myself in a net of trifling 
deceptions. In the cause of romance, — 
which laughs at propriety, (having a higher 
and at the same time a more practical code 

19 



DISCORDS 

of morality) , — I obediently went out and sent 
the telegrams myself, paying for them, 
willingly enough, out of my own pocket ! 
When the week had passed, I proceeded to 
send the second message to Mademoiselle's 
family in England, and I can assert upon 
my honour that my conscience never gave 
me a twinge. 

"Well, in time, the Prince came back to 
his rooms in Paris, and I was summoned to 
lunch with him promptly. I confess that 
my heart went out to him when I found him, 
that gray day, sitting smoking by the fire. 
He looked older, it struck me, yet I had 
never so strongly felt the protective emo- 
tion justified by the disparity in our ages, as 
I did at that moment. He greeted me affec- 
tionately enough, — how sincerely I know not. 

" ■ Well, my dear boy, you are back/ was 
my superfluous observation, as I took my 
seat, and accepted a cigarette. 

"'Yes/ he answered, listlessly, 'and I 
was a damned fool ever to have gone. I 
must tell you about it, or I shall lose my 
temper, simply thinking over it/ 

"So he launched forth upon a long ac- 
count of the two weeks in Normandy, — the 

20 



DISCORDS 

madness which had possessed him, and her, 
too, — the conviction which had grown upon 
him day by day, that this passion of his was 
really the one serious emotion of his life. 

11 ' Heaven knows/ he fumed, ' I know the 
value and the limit of light love. Well ! — 
this was nothing of the kind. In a day I 
knew that that girl was the one thing neces- 
sary to my happiness. I felt as though I 
wanted to carry her off to Africa, or Siberia, 
or ' 

" ' Hard on her ! ' I murmured. He flashed 
out more fiercely at that. 

" ' It isn't in the least a matter for a joke. 
I tell you I love her. Oh, call it absurd, — 
damnable nonsense, anything you like, — but 
you've got to take it seriously or ' 

II 'Tranquilize yourself, as the French 
say,' I told him, soothingly. ' I am taking 
it seriously. So she was as wonderful as 
that, eh ? ' 

"'Yes,' he said, his fire fading a little, 
4 she was as wonderful as that.' 

" « And has she the Amourette ?' I asked. 
"'Yes.' 

II I shook my head. Clearly it was the 
genuine article, this passion of his, if he had 

21 



DISCORDS 

given her the emerald which had failed to 
be assailed by any of his preceding love- 
affairs, however long of duration they had 
been, or however apparently serious of 
intent at the time. 

" His further explanation followed. "Ac- 
cording to his tale, the two weeks in the 
little Normandy box had not been all hal- 
cyon. He had felt a certain element of cold 
savagery in her which had chilled him at 
the very moment when it most strongly 
touched an appreciative chord in his own 
odd make-up. She was absolutely indiffer- 
ent to suffering, whether mental or physical, 
whether in herself or others. She had a 
note of recklessness in her spirit, a touch of 
hardness, and a wealth of passion, which 
was amazing in an English girl of eighteen 
and of established antecedents. She pro- 
fessed to love him, but when, impelled by 
the novelty as well as the fervour of his 
emotions, he had suggested to her that they 
make the purely temporary arrangement per- 
manent and go away together to the ends of 
the earth and be happy, she had stared at 
him as though she suspected his reason of 
being unbalanced. 

22 



DISCORDS 

" ' You must have forgotten that the agree- 
ment was distinctly limited as to time/ she 
said. He pleaded that, on his part, it had 
come to be more than a mere agreement, 
subject to limitations or curtailment, — that 
it was now a living necessity to his happi- 
ness. He told her that she was his mate, 
— his love, — he offered her everything he 
owned. She looked at him unmoved. 

"'I am engaged to be married,' she said, 
icily, 'to an Englishman and a gentleman. 
I shall leave you to-night and forget you 
to-morrow.' 

"The thing was so unspeakable, her im- 
pertinence so colossal, and her strange per- 
verted point of view so unanswerable, that 
he had no more words. She did leave him 
that night, without a word of good-bye, and 
he did not doubt, he declared bitterly, that 
she had kept her word, in regard to the 
second point as well as the first, and had 
forgotten his existence the next day. 

" Never since has the mysterious woman, 
who is the owner of one of the largest em- 
eralds in existence, crossed my path. Once 
only she crossed my friend's. It was at some 
big race in England, and she was sitting on a 

23 



DISCORDS 

coach with a well-known sporting man and 
watching the race. The Prince raised his hat 
to her ; she looked at him, growing a shade 
whiter, he thought, and cut him dead. He 
never forgave her for that. My story ends 
nowhere, as you see. One day this extra- 
ordinary man informed me that he was 
too unendurably bored to support life another 
moment, and he accordingly took a dose of 
opium disguised with a strong liqueur, and 
departed in search of other and newer sen- 
sations in other and newer worlds.' ' 

The Distinguished Diplomat came to a full 
stop at last. Several of the guests looked 
politely bored by this time ; one or two 
seemed really sorry to hear the close ; three 
alone showed an interest as intense as it was 
curious. The Journalist was staring hard at 
the Actress of Character Parts. 

" What is the matter with you ? " he whis- 
pered. " What are you looking at ? " 

"I am studying a face," said the Actress 
of Character Parts, immovably. Her eyes 
were fixed upon Lady Harvey. " I am study- 
ing with all the power of perception I pos- 
sess. Don't bother me; I wouldn't have 
missed this for a diamond bracelet." 
24 



DISCORDS 

Lady Harvey was leaning back in her 
chair fanning herself slowly. She was very, 
very pale, and her fair hair stood out more 
vividly than ever around the absolute waxen 
white of her face. 

"It is close in here, is it not? ,, said the 
Distinguished Diplomat, noticing her pallour. 
"Drink some wine, Lady Harvey. You look 
ill." 

" I am not ill," she answered, quietly, still 
fanning. " Do go on with your story. Is 
there nothing more?" She spoke almost 
eagerly. 

" Nothing," he answered. " I would give 
something to know what became of the 
woman and the Amourette ; but that is the 
worst of Fate. As a dramatist she is unap- 
proachable up to a certain point, but she 
never can manage a denouement satisfac- 
torily." 

"So there is no epilogue! " said the Bru- 
nette, disappointedly. 

"None that we know of," answered the 
Distinguished Diplomat, " and perhaps it is 
as well. It probably would be an anti- 
climax." 

25 



DISCORDS 

Later, when they were all in the drawing- 
room, the Distinguished Diplomat showed 
Lady Harvey a photograph of his dead 
friend, the eccentric Prince of the narrative. 
The face was a strikingly handsome one, of 
singularly attractive expression, and very 
sombre eyes. She looked at it in silence, 
and gave it back. The Distinguished Diplo- 
mat put it on the table, and, there in the 
heavy silver frame, the nameless Prince 
looked out on the lazily chattering guests 
imperturbably. 

"What are you looking at now?" asked 
the Journalist once more of the Actress of 
Character Parts. 

" Still studying that face," she answered, 
slowly. " Some day I may want to imper- 
sonate a woman who is hiding some inner 
emotion magnificently, but who is almost 
overcome by some sudden blow. And there 
is my model. " 

"Nonsense!" said the Journalist. But, 
meanwhile, the Distinguished Diplomat and 
Lady Harvey still sat together, and near 
them was the Prince looking out from his 
silver frame. Suddenly Lady Harvey raised 

26 



DISCORDS 

her eyes to her Inquisitor's face with a quiet 
abandonment of subterfuge. 

" He is really dead?" she said. 

"Really." 

" I did not know that ; I had not heard. 
Did he speak — of me — at all, toward the 
end?" 

"No." 

"Thank you." She choked a little. Then 
she went on : 

" Why did you tell this to-night ? Think 
of what it must have been to me." 

" I was not sure it was you until I was 
half through the story." 

" You suspected ? " 

"Yes; from the address on one of those 
telegrams, and one or two other things, in- 
cluding intuitive evidence." 

" And you told it because " 

" Shall we say partly from curiosity, and 
partly because I thought you needed a little 
punishment ? He loved you, you see, in his 
own queer way; and he is dead." 

With as little ostentation as possible, she 
drew out something which was suspended 
on a fabulously slender chain and hidden in 

27 



DISCORDS 

her bosom. It was an emerald of great size 
and deep colour. 

" I wear it always," she said simply. 

A slight look of pity came into his eyes 
and he took her fan and began to fan her 
himself. 

" Here are the liqueurs," he said. " Take 
one, Lady Harvey, and forget this absurd 
story." He had raised his voice intention- 
ally with the last words. "I am so glad," 
he added, speaking to the others generally, 
" that I was able to make you take my little 
narrative seriously. It was pretty, I flatter 
myself, but a total fabrication, from begin- 
ning to end, — except for the identity of my 
friend." 

"Not true?" they chorused, righteously 
disgusted with his deception. 

" Not true — in the smallest particular. As 
I told you, I am not to be trusted on the 
subject of romance ! " 

He was still fanning Lady Harvey. He 
alone could see the passionate gratitude in 
her eyes. She said no word, but he under- 
stood, and marvelled a little at the minds 
and hearts of women. She raised her glass 
of Benedictine to her lips, and her gaze 

28 



DISCORDS 

drifted absently, wistfully, to the likeness of 
the dead Prince in the silver frame. And 
the Amourette glowed unconcernedly on the 
slender chain, drinking in the unwonted light 
before she hid it once more in her bosom. 



29 



THE PRINCESS AND 
HER COMEDY 



DISCORDS 



Co meb p 



xxxx 



XIII 




EVER to have lived ! " 
** Imt ^^P^Hssl sighed the Princess. 

" Never to have known 
the least bit of a ro- 
mance or a comedy to 
look back upon and to 
smile over when I am 
old! I should like 
to have had a little 
masque, a little play-time, before I am a 
middle-aged married princess, and settled 
for life." 

The Princess sat at her window. I know 
not the name of her home, but it was some- 
where under Italian skies, and it was spring 
there. And the Princess was on fire with 
the growing electric current which seemed 
to run through the whole waking earth. She 
was not yet twenty, and the next day her 
betrothal to a strange distinguished Duke 
was to be formally celebrated. She did not 
love the Duke, and a betrothal without love 

33 



DISCORDS 

is at all times an ill thing, but particularly so 
in spring ; then, if ever, the boy Love runs 
vagrant-like through the land, and all men 
acknowledge his sway and attend his bid- 
ding. 

The Princess had dark hair and eyes and 
a skin which looked as though pure molten 
gold ran in her veins mixed with the rich red 
blood. She was not sentimental, but there 
was a sharp, tugging pain in her heart, as 
she looked out of her window and breathed 
the subtle, vague aroma of opening buds and 
springing grass. Her duenna called her and 
bade her come to her embroidery, but the 
Princess rebelled. 

" I detest it — the embroidery,'* she said, 
feelingly, " all foolish crosses and flowers 
and gold and purple thread, set together with 
a meaning that only the designers can com- 
prehend. I do not think that Monsignore 
the Cardinal wants such foolish trimming 
for his vestments.' ' 

" Hush, — you are not respectful to the holy 
ecclesiastical pattern, cara mia. You are an 
irreverent child.' ' 

"Signora," pursued the girl, unheeding, 
" do you not think it rather sad that I have 

34 



DISCORDS 

never had the smallest shadow of a romance 
or a comedy?" 

"They are indeed shadows," said the 
duenna, seriously. " You are better without 
either. Though indeed I think you will find 
one or the other in time. Life is very much 
of a comedy, carrissima, — and that you will 
discover for yourself.' ' 

Yet she sighed, and could say no more to 
discourage her charge's discontent. She sat 
silent, and thought of her own spring and 
its undying brightness. She knew that her 
present dull lot was only rendered endurable 
by the echoes of her own young laughter 
which still rang in her brain, though it was 
many years since she had left all comedies 
behind. Sometimes her heart sang yet 
with the joy of love, though the man she 
loved had been dead for thirty years. She 
slipped out of the room soon, and left the 
Princess at the window, with the spring 
music outside, and the breath of spring 
blowing — blowing past, with a challenge and 
a bidding in its sweetness. 

Now, it was an hour later that the good lady 
returned to bid the Princess go to be dressed 
for her drive. But the room was empty. 

35 



DISCORDS 

" Margherita," she called, softly, but Mar- 
gherita was gone. 

" Pardon, Signora," said Margherita's 
maid from the door of an inner room, " Her 
Excellency said she was going to mass, and 
would not let me accompany her." 

" Luisa, you know the Princess should not 
have gone alone. Was she veiled ? " 

" Yes, Signora, — and left word that you 
must not be disturbed. She required the 
fresh air, she said, Signora. " 

The duenna was worried and disturbed, 
but — after all, what harm could come to the 
child ? It was early afternoon, and she was 
veiled. She settled herself in a comfortable 
chair with a book, and the warm spring day 
drifted on. 

The Princess knelt meekly in the shadowy 
church, and crossed herself at prescribed 
intervals, and tried not to think of the sun 
and sweetness outside. She wore her veil 
drawn closely over her face, and no one 
noticed the slender figure kneeling among 
the rest. But, as she came out into the 
sunshine, the temptation was very strong, 
and she raised her veil to breathe the air at 

36 



DISCORDS 

will. The people were pressing out about 
her. It was good to be one of them, to feel 
their arms touch hers, to see their brown 
faces and strong, bent shoulders so close to 
her. She was conscious for the first time in 
her life of being truly alive, — one of these 
vast numbers of human beings, a woman 
born upon the earth to be as other women. 
The momentary sensation thrilled her. She 
saw a contadina with a baby held over her 
shoulder. She caught the woman's eyes 
and smiled at her. The cheerful little mother 
smiled in return, and the child clutched at 
the dark veil which blew about Margherita's 
hat. 

"What a pretty baby!" she murmured, 
foolishly. 

"Thank you, Excellency,' ' said the woman, 
" he is well, praise God." 

The term " Excellency " chilled her. She 
went on. No, they would not have her 
except as an " Excellency," — one not of 
themselves. 

Suddenly she saw a man watching her. 
He had not been to mass, evidently, and 
seemed to stand quite idle, leaning against 
the wall of a house. He was a tall man, not 

37 



DISCORDS 

in his first youth, with a superb head and 
piercing eyes. These eyes were fixed upon 
the Princess with a strange, impersonal, but 
deeply interested gaze. They did not seem 
to recognize her as a woman, but as a being ; 
there was in them not admiration so much 
as absorbed attention. Margherita felt the 
colour warm her face, yet with no definite 
sensation of embarrassment. She might 
have been a Shakespearean folio, or a bit of 
Byzantine brass-work from the way he 
looked at her. As she passed him, he started 
forward and hastened on at her side. Reali- 
zing that he had removed his hat and was 
about to speak, she mechanically lowered 
her veil, keeping her steady, leisurely pace. 

"Pardon, Signorina," he said, quite with- 
out formality, but with an accent of cultiva- 
tion, " I mean no disrespect, but I have a 
reason for wishing to speak to you." 

She felt a slight thrill of excitement. Some- 
thing told her that she need fear no approach 
to discourtesy from this man. And the inci- 
dent was full of a nameless interest. 

" Will you allow me to speak ? I repeat 
that you need have no anxiety. They call 
me mad, here, but once many years ago I 

38 



DISCORDS 

was a gentleman. Now I am a third-rate 
artist and paint little pictures for my daily 
bread. They are very bad little pictures, 
Signorina, but I love them. Also I know, 
you see, how much better I can do. But 
you have not yet given me permission to 
speak.' ■ 

One more moment she hesitated, then im- 
pelled by something — she knew not what — 
she turned toward him and answered, very 
low, " Speak, Signor." 

He bowed gravely. 

4 'They call me mad, Signorina, as I have 
said. Surely I am mad to address you — I, a 
stranger to you, — in the street! Yet, you 
seem to understand. Perhaps you see in 
me what may not be quite dead — the gen- 
tleman that I was born. To be brief, 
Signorina, I am painting a picture for a 
friend, a benefactor. He has given me the 
subject, he has given me the name; but I 
have in my brain a greater picture than he 
could imagine. It is to be called ■ Comedy/ 
Signorina, and I have been hunting far and 
wide for a model. I wanted a face which 
should have in it all the vitality and strength, 
all the humour and gladness, of life and of 

39 



DISCORDS 

youth, — but, underneath, that pathos which 
lies like an undercurrent to all gaiety. No 
smile is of any value, Signorina, unless the 
possibility of tears be behind it. In your 
face I have found my ideal." 

Margherita started with amazement, and 
stared at him through her veil. 

" You want me to pose for your picture, — 
me?" she began with marked displeasure. 
Then she realized, quickly, that she had 
brought the proposal on herself, and also 
that after all he knew neither her name nor 
rank, and could not intend an insult. In fact, 
he was looking at her with a certain pained 
expression in his eager and flashing eyes. 
The belief came to her suddenly that he was 
a very great artist, and softened her voice 
when she spoke. 

"I am sorry, Signor," she said, coldly but 
gently, "it is quite out of the question." 

But the man, still with that troubled look, 
walked on at her side. 

"But, Signorina," he persisted, eagerly, 
" I am quite certain that you cannot know 
what it is to me. I am selfish, I know ; all 
artists are selfish. But — I have dreamed of 
this opportunity all my life, and starved and 

40 



DISCORDS 

struggled for it. And now it has come so 
close to me ; the vision of it is in my brain. 
It will be a far greater picture than the man 
who ordered it even dreams. See, Signorina, 
I will tell you ! It is the woman Comedy : 
she stands in a careless pose, her head is 
thrown back, her gay dress is old and tattered, 
but its lines are full of grace. The figure is 
complete, — it was easy to find models for 
that ! The dress is like the costume of the 
female jesters of the French Court, but for 
the great rents in the green and yellow 
raiment. She is finished save for the 
face. But the face must be that of a 
young angel strayed to earth and laughing 
splendidly to make the sport of the mortals 
for whom in her heart she could really 
weep. Ah, Signorina, I will immortalize 
you in my painting! See, — you cannot go 
away and leave me, now that I have found 
my ideal! " 

The Princess was surprised to find how 
much she was moved. The theme of the 
picture, the words of the artist, interested 
her strangely. Of course it would be mon- 
strous if she, Margherita, Princess of D — , 
should allow an unknown, common painter 

4i 



DISCORDS 

to put her into his picture ! Yet — the man's 
eyes stirred her soul. She had often longed 
for an opportunity to help some one, to in- 
spire some great dream, to assist in some 
great work. Suppose her father should find 
out ? Well, he could not kill her ! And she 
was in a position to laugh at any scandal 
which might accrue to her if her likeness 
should be recognized. What was rank if 
not a protection from the vulgar ? People 
would assume it was from a photograph. 
'With a curious impulse, which seemed to 
come elsewhere than from herself, she turned 
to the artist. 

" Listen," she said, " there is a reason why 
I should not let you paint me, — wait ! a very 
real reason. Yet, because you interest me, 
because you make me believe that you really 
are a genius and that I may help you, — I will 
let you make a sketch of me; just that, no 
more. I can never come again, but I will 
give you this one afternoon to catch the like- 
ness for your woman Comedy." 

He listened with deep and passionate 
attention. 

" Thank you, Signorina," he cried, " a 
thousand, thousand times ! Come, — come 

42 



DISCORDS 

quickly ! I will show you what can be done 
in one afternoon. Ah, God is good! " 

He led her down a side street, and like a 
creature in a dream she followed him up a 
long flight of stairs and into his studio. It 
was a large, bare room, a work-room, no 
more ; canvases were piled against the walls, 
and pushed into a corner, stood a broad, 
coarse table upon which were a number of 
undusted books, some sketching-blocks of 
various sizes, a half unrolled charcoal study, 
a graceful little figurine, and a heap of some 
terra-cotta material which had probably been 
used either as background or drapery. The 
room would have been untidy if there had 
been more in it; as it was, it was like a 
garret or a barn. In the course of time 
Margherita's surprised glances encountered 
isolated points of beauty in the dingy desola- 
tion of the place : a rough but striking out- 
line from the nude, done in charcoal on a very 
large square of paper and tacked upon the 
wall; a black-framed group of Bartolozzi 
cupids smiling in a corner; a complacent 
brown Buddha on a plain deal shelf, and a 
quaint, poster-like study in blue, white and 
green, which fascinated the Princess, though 

43 



DISCORDS 

she could not know its value as one of 
Japan's rarest of kakemonos. 

The artist went to work in wild haste. 
He flung the cloth off his picture, — a bold 
and well-executed woman's figure in the 
costume he had described. Then he caught 
up brushes and palette, and began to squeeze 
out colour after colour with hands that 
trembled. 

" Be good enough to remove your hat, 
Signorina," he said, in an imperative tone. 
She obeyed with a slight flush. He seemed 
the master now, and she felt very meek and 
obedient. Then he bade her sit where the 
light cast a peculiarly deep shadow beneath 
chin and cheek, and to tilt her head back. 

So the work began. 

When the Princess was very old she used 
to look back with curious interest to that 
afternoon. It was very easy to conjure up 
that bare studio, with the light slanting in, 
and the artist, his tall and slender frame 
instinct with power and with absorption 
in his work, — painting — painting — painting. 
There was no clock, and she had no way of 
knowing the hour, but she was quite certain 
that by that time the casa would be in a tur- 

44 



DISCORDS 

moil of anxiety concerning her. She dreaded 
the home-going later. But all the while the 
memory of that part of her life was like a 
dream of things which had been years ago. 
This was the reality. This was, or should 
be, her true life, — here in the studio with the 
dust and the tools of art about her, and the 
artist painting — painting — painting. 

"Do you paint here every day, Signor?" 
she asked, rather timidly. 

" Every day, except when " 

He coloured darkly, then finished with 
angry bluntness, — " Except when I am 
drunk." 

She started and shrank, then tried to hold 
herself as still as before. 

"That shocks you, Signorina. I did not 
drink years ago, when I was a gentleman. 
But I have had suffering and some trouble. 
It is no excuse, but it explains, perhaps, 
partly. They say that I am mad, Signorina. 
Is not drunkenness a kind of madness? I 
think indeed at times I am mad." 

He painted on. Suddenly he flung his 
palette from him and buried his face in his 
hands. * 

" God ! " he muttered, desperately, " I can- 

45 



DISCORDS 

not paint ! I cannot ! I am no longer fit ! " 

She rose, much bewildered and a little 
frightened. 

"What is it, Signor?" she asked, softly. 
"Why can you not paint?" 

He made an eloquent gesture, pointing 
toward the canvas. She came quietly to 
his side and looked. The likeness was 
sufficiently good, the technique striking 
evidence of the man's ability and training ; 
yet all vitality, all spirituality, all conviction 
of conception seemed lacking. His dream 
was nobler than his execution. 

"It is like me, I think," she said, gently. 
She felt a vague but profound pity for this 
man, and it was in her voice as she spoke. 

He looked up at her without stirring. 

" Can you not see ? " he said, in a low but 
tragic tone, " I have made it commonplace 
— prosaic ! I, who desired it to be the cul- 
mination of poetry! No, it is too fine for 
me, — too fine, — too high. Ah, Signorina, 
I ask your pardon. You must go. I can do 
nothing more. I shall return to the little 
paintings that sell for little sums at the pic- 
ture-frame shops." 

His voice rang with bitterness ; his eyes 

46 



DISCORDS 

were fastened upon hers. For the first time 
something was in his gaze besides mere 
artistic appreciation. He was a man, and the 
Princess was very lovely and very young. 

She stood silent. There were a great 
many thoughts within her brain at that 
moment, and her heart was pulsing strangely. 

" Please try once more," she said at last, 
looking at him. " She will come, — your 
Comedy; but you must go on working, — 
please." 

The artist caught her hand, — very young 
and slender, and cream-white like ivory, — 
and pressed it against his face for one short 
instant. His heart thanked her in the action 
for her belief in him. And, curiously, she 
was not angered, but went slowly and tran- 
quilly back to her place, though her hand 
still tingled with the strength of his clasp 
and the fire of his cheek. 

And once more he began to paint, — with a 
new look in his face now, and occasional 
deep glances which she could feel though 
her eyes were not on his. Then the light 
from bright pale gold grew rich and orange in 
tone, and both realized that the afternoon was 
waning. Outside someone was singing an 

47 



DISCORDS 

old song, — one of the songs which the people 
echo generation after generation, until it be- 
comes the expression of personal joys and 
longings. 

And at last the artist laid down his brushes 
and rose. His eyes called her, and she came 
to look. She felt stiff and weary from her 
long pose, but she was happy, — deeply if 
unaccountably happy,. And the picture was 
a success. Her own face looked out at her 
from the canvas, her own warm gold-tinted 
colouring bloomed there, her own deep eyes 
brooded softly. There was her sensitive 
mouth, there her delicate chin and fine ear, 
there her broad forehead and that soft curve 
of cheek which made people love her. 

"You are a very great artist !" she said, 
wonderingly. " It is a marvellous picture." 

" Do you think it is art which has done 
this?" he said suddenly, his eyes growing 
very dark with passion. " It is you, Signor- 
ina, — it is " 

He bowed his head, and fell a step back. 

" Signorina, — you know — what it — is," he 
said. 

The colour flooded the girl's face, up to the 
warm brown of her hair. 

4 8 



DISCORDS 

" Signor !" she exclaimed. And after a 
pause she repeated, in a changed and soft- 
ened voice, " Signor! " 

He looked at her steadily. 

" 'Will you tell me your name, Signorina ? " 
he asked. 

" It is — Margherita," she answered. " I — 
I cannot — I must not tell you the rest." 

11 Yes, yes ; I can understand. Margher- 
ita! — Margherita! — You are very wonder- 
ful, Signorina Margherita. I think you 
are more wonderful than any woman who 
ever lived before. It is because you are 
so wonderful, and so far beyond all other 
women and men, that I dare say some- 
thing to you which brands me forever as 
mad. Come with me to the window for 
one moment. " 

They stood together at the high window — 
the sky-fronting, northern window peculiar 
to studios. Below and above were roofs — 
red roofs, gray roofs, broken roofs, new roofs. 
Smoke curled faintly away here and there in 
graduated chains of haze. Trees and ivy 
were rustling faintly, singing a song that 
was very, very old. Down in a square a 
flock of doves circled a stone fountain, and 

49 



DISCORDS 

some brightly dressed children sold spring 
flowers. 

" For many years," said the man, as they 
gazed, " I have looked out over the town and 
dreamed, but always with pain in remem- 
bering the past, and usually with a faint 
smothered hope for the future. Hereafter 
it will be different. My one joy will be in 
remembrance, — my one terror, the eternal 
loneliness of the days and years to come. I 
know that I am mad, Signorina, very mad : 
mad enough to have become new-born in a 
single day ; mad enough, at this moment, 
to bar the door against the future which 
must come creeping in like cold mist. Mad 
enough even to — love you." 

The Princess made no answer. Was it 
only to-day that she had mourned the lack 
of incident in her life ? Was it only two 
hours ago that she had come to the studio 
more in a spirit of careless, interested ad- 
venture than anything else ? Was it indeed 
herself, — Margherita, — who now looked out 
of the high window and so quietly listened 
to this man tell her that he loved her? 

" I love you," repeated the man. " People 
do not usually love in two hours, do they ? 

50 



DISCORDS 

You are the most beautiful woman in the 
world, and the noblest, the truest. It has 
come to me suddenly, this strange thing 
they call love, and it is too late for me to 
seize it. I am too old, and too worn, and 
too utterly unworthy." He bent his head. 

"Why are you these things?" asked the 
Princess. " You do not speak truth; you are 
wrong. If you are old, it is not in years. If 
you are worn, it is not in heart. And if 
you are unworthy, it is not in the eyes of 
love—" 

She stopped, growing white rather than 
red. The man looked at her. 

"Tell me," he said, "you are wise, as 
women are wise, sometimes. Am I a coward 
to tell you that I love you ? — to tell you that 
I have waited for you all my life, and that if 
I might I would never let you go away again ? 
If the gods let me, I would keep you near 
me, with me, in my arms forever and for- 
ever ; and we would go forth together, you 
and I, and seek adventures, and love men 
and each other, and return thanks for the 
good green earth in our love. Am I a coward 
to say all this?" 

"No," she whispered, "you are not a 

5i 



DISCORDS 

coward. You make me happy. I, too, 
should like that to be so." 

He caught her into his arms, and bending 
laid his lips on hers. She never knew how 
long they stood so. Only, in that space, she 
lived her entire life of love and joy and free- 
dom, resting so in his arms, her brain stilled 
by his kiss and everything else shut out. 

At last he lifted his head and let her slip 
from his arms. In a voice broken with sud- 
den tears she said that she must go. The 
tears were gone as soon as they had come ; 
the time for weeping was not yet, — not while 
she could still see him. And she put on her 
hat and arranged her veil, and came to him 
for good-bye. 'When he held her in his arms 
in that last moment, he cried out, as though 
in spite of himself, " Must it be ? — Margher- 
ita, it shall not ! You belong to me ; I will 
not let you go." 

" Hush! " she said, " I must. And I am 
content; I have lived." 

Before she left the studio, she saw him 
draw a knife across the painting so that the 
head and figure were severed forever. 

" I will paint a new Comedy," he said; "a 
smiling, mocking thing, knowing the values 

52 



DISCORDS 

of life. This pictured face shall be my love 
and my wife for the rest of my days. Have 
no fear for me. I shall be a great man now, 
I believe." 

So she went away and left him, with the 
complacent brown Buddha grinning on his 
dusty shelf among the shadows, and the last 
glimmering light lying faintly on the green 
and yellow tatters that clothed the Comedy 
on the easel. 

Dusk was falling ; the world had come to 
an end. 

"Well!" snapped the duenna, between 
tears and rage, when the Princess was at 
home again, and the angry anxiety of the 
household had been assuaged, and the truant 
had been properly lectured, "and possibly 
you may be good enough to give an account 
of yourself! You went to mass, — good! 
Where have you been ever since ? " 

"I wandered about the streets," said the 
Princess, "in search of Romance and of 
Comedy." She stopped and laughed curi- 
ously. " I found them. Comedy! — My God ! " 

"Do not be blasphemous, Margherita," 
said the duenna. " I am sure I do not know 

53 



DISCORDS 

what you mean. Do you mean you saw 
curious sights in the streets ? A town like 
this is always full of odd happenings." 

"Yes," said the Princess, "full of odd 
happenings." 

Then she put her head down upon her 
arms and broke into sobs. 

"Hush, — hush, carrissima!" cried the 
duenna, leaning over her in perturbation. 
"You are overtired, and no wonder. You 
see where your wildness leads you ! How- 
ever, we will say no more about that. I 
will bring you a cup of tea, poverina, and 
then you must rest. The Duke, your affi- 
anced, dines here to-night, and you must 
not be pale and red-eyed." 

But the Princess sobbed on, unheeding. 

" I said I was content," she was whisper- 
ing, between her sobs, "but I am not, — I 
am not!" 



54 



THE WHITE 
GARDEN 



DISCORDS 

Cfce Wtytt Garten 




T was like a garden of 
snow, — such a garden 
as a disembodied spirit 
might have loved and 
tended, for only white 
flowers grew there. 
They bloomed, and fell 
asleep and came again 
with each bright spring, 
— but they were all white. No colour ever 
stole in to jar the delicate monotone which 
made the garden ; its purity was absolute, its 
beauty frail and unquestionable. To one who 
felt gardens to be among the warmest and 
sweetest of man's pleasures, and knew no 
shame in the happy riot of the senses in their 
riches, the wan loveliness of this garden 
would have seemed far too remote and col- 
ourless. But a nun, or a monk, grown accus- 
tomed to austerity in the emotions, would 
have been content there. 

White snow-drops in early spring heralded 
the multiplied sweet profusion of the later 

57 



DISCORDS 

flowers which soon filled the garden and 
gave joy to the bees and butterflies. There 
were all the many blossoms that make the 
flower-beds of old houses fragrant, — but only 
the white varieties. 'White sweet-peas, like 
little ghostly butterflies, fluttered there, and 
white carnations breathing an aromatic per- 
fume too suggestive for their pallour ; white 
lilacs, — blossoms expressive of all the poetry 
and the music in nature's soul ; pale hydran- 
gias, and snowy hollyhocks that blew in the 
wind like spirits, and the rest of the sweet 
and innocent blooms that made up the 'White 
Garden. Then in June the air was delicious 
with the scent of the white roses, full and 
delicate and beautiful. 

So the summer passed. Autumn is not 
a white season, so the garden went to sleep 
early, and rested, and perhaps drew new 
freshness and purity of tint from the snow 
which lay upon it all winter. 

One morning in midsummer, the woman 
who owned and tended the garden stood in 
the midst of its waning sweetness and looked 
wistfully about her. The roses still lingered, 
and the hollyhocks and sweet-peas were at 
their fairest ; but, for the most part, the gar- 

58 



DISCORDS 

den's best time was passed. Spring was 
gone, and the white flowers would soon go 
too. 

The woman was very beautiful in a pale 
and fragile fashion. She was slender, and 
stooped slightly as though under burdens 
too heavy for her. Her eyes were sad, but 
her mouth had the sweetness which only 
comes after much smiling through tears. 

"It is like a bridal, my garden," she said 
to herself, and then with a sigh, " — or like a 
funeral; I hardly know which.' ' 

She plucked a cluster of small climbing 
roses from a hedge, and passed with them 
back to the house, — the quiet, white colonial 
house brooding with its Revolutionary mem- 
ories over the garden. For ten years the 
house had been her home, yet she never 
quite understood it. Her poetic soul had 
grasped its beauty, however, and it had 
strangely fitted in to the new phase of her 
life and thoughts, — the phase which had just 
caused her to remodel the old, flaunting, 
overgrown, riotous garden, to weed out the 
colours, and to plant only white blossoms 
there. 

"I have brought you flowers," she said, 

59 



DISCORDS 

gently, as she came up between the pillars 
onto the verandah. The man who sat in 
the rocking-chair took the roses she brought 
and held them to his face with a peculiar 
intentness. He was blind. 

"They have the breath of summer," he 
commented. " Tell me, — is the garden beau- 
tiful this year, Anne ? " 

"It is — perfect, " she answered him, with 
a wistful, backward glance. "Try to see 
them through my eyes, Wilfred, — the deli- 
cacy, and the luxuriance " 

"And the colours, " he said, responsively. 

"Yes," she answered, steadily, "the 
lovely, warm, bright colours." 

" Your voice had a curious note, then," he 
said, frowning a little. " Your tone is never 
quite true when you speak of your garden. 
You never seem to love it as most women 
love theirs. You always speak of it per- 
functorily, with an effort. Is it that you do 
not really care for flowers? " 

" So much! " she told him, speaking with 
seeming difficulty, " so much ! " 

He was silent for a moment, then spoke 
gently. 

"Anne, you have been the most faithful 

60 



DISCORDS 

and devoted wife that ever married a blind 
man and became his eyes and hands and 
brain. Yet there has always been a lack 
which I have felt." 

"A lack, Wilfred ?" Her voice rang with 
pain. 

" Yes, dear. The lack of yourself. Since 
you came to me, — first the friend of my 
sister who died so soon afterward, then my 
consoler, finally my wife, — you have seemed 
to grow dearer and more necessary to me 
each day. Yet I have felt from the first 
that something, some part of yourself was 
held back. Your voice is sweet, but tone- 
less, Anne, as though you spoke from a 
distance. Your touch is gentle, but restrained 
— controlled. Your presence affects me as 
the presence of a spirit — a shadow. Yet 
you love me, Anne, — I know it. What is it 
which makes you fear to be yourself with 
me?" 

She pressed her hand upon her heart 
before she answered, and there was a look 
of fear in her eyes. 

" Wilfred," she said, " I do love you. You 
know that ; what else matters ? " 

" A great deal," he returned, with gentle 

61 



DISCORDS 

promptness, "I was a faded, blind, worn 
man, Anne, when you came to me and loved 
me and became my wife. I was as cold and 
as stern as the rocks of a sea-shore. Yet I 
had lived, had moved in the world, had 
mixed with men and women, and I under- 
stand voices somewhat. I know how to 
read self-repression in a voice, for one thing. 
Yours rings with it, sobs with it, vibrates 
with it, Anne. What is it which your voice 
hides ? I want to know the real Anne who 
has been far away, while my wife Anne has 
lived with me and ministered to me, these 
ten long years." 

11 No one can read another's heart truly," 
she said, steadily. " There is self-restraint 
even in the most perfect love and compre- 
hension. You, Wilfred, — your heart is as 
much a mystery to me as mine to you." 

He was silent for a minute, fingering the 
small white roses, while from each yellow 
calyx the pale petals fluttered now and then 
to the floor. 

"That is true," he said, slowly. "There 
is something in my heart which you do not 
know, Anne. I will tell it to you, now, 
to-day, that I may do my part to remove 

62 



DISCORDS 

this strange, cold barrier which is between 
us in spite of our love for each other." 

" Wilfred," she interrupted, " tell me noth- 
ing; I need nothing. I know all about you 
that it is necessary for me to know. I love 
you. I am satisfied." 

" You do not know this that I am about to 
tell you. You know that I am a good man, as 
the world considers it. You know that I was 
educated for the Church, and only gave it up 
because of « scruples/ — much to my credit, 
the Bishop said. You know that I am a 
theologian of some rank, and that before my 
blindness I was a student who had won 
respect. You do not know " 

He drew a long breath. " You do not know 
that I was once for more than a year, the 
lover of a woman lost to all sense of good 
and of decency, that I followed her from 
place to place, her slave and adorer, that I 
gave her my soul and heart and all my senti- 
ments and ambitions upon which to trample, 
and squandered upon her that which should 
by right have been my sister's, — and now 
yours. Men think little of these things in 
the world, but I have never been of the 
world and I know the depth of my shame." 

63 



DISCORDS 

Strangely enough, the woman who heard 
him showed neither surprise nor agitation. 
Only upon her face grew an expression of 
overwhelming and helpless sadness. 

"She cared nothing for me," pursued the 
blind man, quietly. " But I loved her with 
all my soul, and would have died for her." 

"Who was she?" asked the woman, and 
when he answered she shivered. 

" Her name was Anita Leicester, or so 
she called herself, and she was a singer. I 
heard her first in ' Carmen ' and I adored her, 
passionately, irrevocably. I overturned all 
convention in order to see her. She encour- 
aged me, poisoned my life with her cruel, 
tender sweetness, — let me believe that she 
loved me. I was young and a fool. I did 
not know that women could play at love like 
that, and venture into the deep, strong waters 
of passion — all for a game. I wrote to my 
Bishop, giving up all idea of entering the 
Church, because she had once laughed at 
my appointed calling. 

"Then I found a note from her. She had 
gone, they said. I learned every word by 
heart in that one moment of misery. * Poor, 
good, religious boy ! ' the note ran ; * have I 

64 



DISCORDS 

hurt you ? I am sorry, for you were very 
charming, and I could almost have loved 
you. But we are as unlike as an eagle and 
a poor little foolish night-moth, fond of 
sweet flowers and bright lights. Go your ways 
and let me go mine. Good-bye ! Anita.' " 

The woman raised her hands and covered 
her face, but she made no sound. 

"I returned to my sister/' continued the 
blind man, tonelessly, "and entered once 
more upon my theological studies, though 
more as an intellectual occupation than be- 
cause of any religious interest. That was 
dead. I have always considered my blind- 
ness the punishment for my sin." 

His voice had grown hoarse and broken. 
As he clenched his hands the remains of 
the small white roses fell from them. 

"I have been very frank, Anne," he said, 
slowly. " It has been the hardest task of 
my life. Perhaps I have done wrong in 
even mentioning before you the name of a 
woman like Anita Leicester. But I felt 
impelled " 

He said no more. His strength had failed 
him, and he now sat silent, waiting for her 
to speak. 

65 



DISCORDS 

"I thank you," she said, very low, "for 
telling me — all — this. Though I am sorry, 
both for your pain, and also because — Oh, 
Wilfred, I, too, have had a burden to carry, 
deep down in my heart where it could only 
hurt me — and now it seems I must let it 
hurt you, too. Wilfred, did Phoebe — did 
your sister ever tell you how she met me ? 
It was while we were both abroad, and we 
met — and her name interested me. Ah, how 
shall I tell it all ? She showed me your pic- 
ture, — the picture of the brother who was 
blind, she said. It was after that that she 
asked me to visit her, and I came back, and 
you know — the rest — " Her voice trailed off 
into silence. 

" Yes, I know the rest, Anne. I remem- 
ber Phoebe's letter from Nice about the 
beautiful, strange woman she had met, — so 
good and so charming. I remember your 
arrival. I remember you as Phoebe's loving 
friend — almost sister, even then. Why do 
you go into this, Anne? ,, 

"Because — I have not the courage to go 
into the rest. Yet I must. My life was a 
strange one before I met Phoebe, Wilfred, — 
I have had much to expiate. When I came 

66 



DISCORDS 

here and realized the peace and chastity and 
quiet of this old place I felt afraid, ashamed. 
I vowed to myself that I would purify my 
own soul until I became as nearly as pos- 
sible like the Puritan-minded women who 
have lived here generation after generation. 
I strove with that in view ; I shut out every 
temptation from my life and heart. Wilfred, 
there are no colours in my garden. The 
flowers are all white — white — white, — as I 
would have made my thoughts. This was 
one of my penances. Sometimes — ah, you 
do not know how I have struggled with my 
craving for sensuous things, — for light, and 
colour, and beauty, and music — " 

"Anne!" he cried, "what has come to 
you ? Your voice is new. It is like the 
voices I knew out there in the world, years 
ago. It says " 

She had risen to her feet, and suddenly 
she raised her hands with the swift, graceful 
gesture of an accomplished actress holding 
the centre of the stage. In every curve of 
her body spoke the woman accustomed to 
sway multitudes. Her chest expanded, her 
eyes glowed, and then softly, exquisitely, 
she began to sing. 

67 



DISCORDS 

" L' Amour est enfant de Boheme," she 

sang, — the inimitable, insolent confession of 
the faith of Carmen, — and as she sang her 
voice gained in strength and smoothness. It 
changed and softened and warmed and rose in 
power, until it seemed to have run through 
the entire gamut possible to the human voice. 
The blind man had risen slowly, and stood, 
grasping the back of his chair. 

" Prend garde a toi!" challenged the 
beautiful, passionate voice, and then it broke 
and fell, ending in a sob. 

" Anne ! " he gasped, and then, in a burst 
of comprehension, " Anita ! That was Anita's 
voice! M 

Tears sprang to her eyes and rolled down 
her cheeks. She stretched out her hands 
toward him, then drew them quickly back 
and pressed them against her face. When 
she spoke her voice was muffled, and marred 
by tears. 

"I am Anita," she said. "I loved you, 
and when I knew of your blindness I came 
to you. I have tried to make myself anew 
for your sake, for I knew how you despised 
and scorned me as I was. Now — you know ; 
and I will go away." 

68 



DISCORDS 

" Anita ! " he said, again, and she trembled 
and dropped her hands, for his voice was 
melodious with passionate joy, and his face 
was aflame, — transfigured. 

" You — are — glad ? " she managed to 
whisper. 

"Glad!" he repeated, and now his voice 
was as hushed as her own. He took one 
step toward her and held out his arms. 

" Come," he said. 



69 



JUAN DE CASTRO'S 
GOLDEN WEEK 



DISCORDS 



3uan *e Castro's Allien 



xxxxx 



xxxxx 




HIS is a story of Ha- 
vana, as it was some 
years since, when I 
was a boy there, Senor; 
— in the days when it 
was more isolated, 
more oppressed, more 
unhealthy and more 
picturesque than it is 
to-day, — the days when the mail-steamers 
came only once in two weeks, and we could 
only cable Madrid via Key West. Eh, Senor, 
those, if you like, were good days, — good at 
least in the view of us young scoundrels, 
who were too wise to work if we could, too 
foolish if we would. We spent long days 
and nights in wine, women and song, — and 
tobacco ! — we must not forget nicotine, 
Sefior, the little cigarito, which is so good, 
so comforting, so inspiring to the imagina- 
tion and the digestion. We were harmless 
for the most part ; few of us had the wit to 

73 



DISCORDS 

think of actual evil for ourselves. De Castro, 
though, — he, if you like, had brains — but 
brains ! Truly I wonder at the brains of de 
Castro ! He might have been very great had 
he been placed elsewhere than in our Habafia, 
— the place of blue skies and hot, steaming 
nights, and pretty, painted Cuban belles, and 
the cigarito. As it was, he was the greatest 
man in Havana. But you shall hear ; — then, 
judge for yourself! 

Juan de Castro, you must know, Senor, 
was very poor, — as poor as — well, as the rest 
of us! More could not be said. It was 
stated that he owed every tradesman in 
Havana, and there seemed no reasonable 
probability that he would ever pay them. 
He had affairs with every Seftorita of note, 
and, half the time, did not seem to be 
expected to pay toll even in such light coin 
as jewels or flowers. Women loved him 
readily, — for his handsome eyes and his 
spendthrift ways, for his lithe figure and 
his white teeth, for his laugh, and his 
gay, imperious manner. 

Those whom he loved were usually those 
of merry hearts and small minds, — those who 
ask not intentions, and can love for a month, a 

74 



DISCORDS 

week, a day, or an hour as suits their pleas- 
ure. But there was one lady, — very high 
and grand and marvellously fair, a white- 
skinned Spanish maid and the daughter of a 
general, — and Juan loved her. She was 
called Isabella, — the rest of her name matters 
little, — and I myself will confess that she 
had a marvellous air, and eyes for which 
one could imagine a man's cherishing an 
abiding yearning and passion. She seldom 
glanced in Juan's direction, yet he gave her 
such whole-hearted adoration as the old 
Castillian poets used to sing of in immortal 
verse. 

Often I have seen him look after her, as 
she passed, with a deep heart-hunger in his 
gaze which made me pity him ; and then he 
would say: "Is she not beautiful, — but 
beautiful, Pedro? Beautiful, and pure and 
sweet ! I love her, Pedro ! Ah, I love her 
— lovelier!" 

One day he followed her to mass, and 
again, and yet again. And at last — ah, I do 
not know how he had brought it about, but 
so it was! — he had succeeded in winning 
speech with her, and stood a fair chance, 
as I could see, for her favour. Then her 

75 



DISCORDS 

father discovered something, — a perfectly 
innocent something it must have been, — 
a rose, or a verse written in the hasty hand 
of impatient love, and folded trianglewise. 
At all events, he quite properly took the 
Seftorita to task, and put a stop to her going 
to mass alone. 

So there was an end of it, and my heart 
ached for Juan, for he was badly hurt in this 
stupid and ungenerous tourney of love, and 
seemed now unable to support life save 
with such fortitude born of bitterness as cut 
me to see and countenance. 

He went once to the General, determining 
to be so honest at least as to deserve honest 
treatment, and he must have plead his cause 
with some courage and wit, for the old gentle- 
man heard him through. And, having heard, 
he did him the courtesy of saying respect- 
fully, " I am sorry, Sefior, that what you ask 
is out of the question. I would sacrifice 
anything to my daughter's wishes except my 
daughter herself. You have nothing; the 
question is closed at the outset. I must ask 
you to excuse me from further discussion.' ' 

Juan dwelt much on his trouble, and noth- 
ing seemed to console him. We took him to 

76 



DISCORDS 

the bull-fight ; — an excellent fight it was too, 
really a battle, Sefior, with much blood and 
many bulls and a celebrated Matador from 
Seville, — Jose Diaz was his name. But my 
poor friend looked on with a frown and left 
before the second bull met his death. He 
afterwards declared that he liked not the 
brute's bleeding shoulders. Now, I knew 
from this that his trouble was very heavy, 
for a man with Spanish or Cuban blood in 
him must indeed be in a dark way when he 
finds no pleasure in a bull-fight. 

We next took him to see the last favourite 
dance. She was a full-throated, lithe-limbed 
creature, and the surprising absence of rouge 
on her cheeks was soon discounted by the 
deep red blood that flushed her delicate skin 
when she danced. Her steps were most 
seductive and her dress as alluringly insig- 
nificant as possible. Yet Juan looked gloomy 
and abstracted, and forgot to applaud. 

One day he said to me : 

" Pedro, I have put my ill-luck to one 
more test. I have bought a share in the big 
Madrid Lottery." 

"That is a foolish use to which to put 
good money," I told him, tranquilly. 

77 



DISCORDS 

Many men buy shares in the Madrid lot- 
teries, each hoping to win the Capital Prize, 
which comes to forty thousand of your dol- 
lars, Senor. Yet in my long life-time I have 
met but three men who ever made money 
out of them. One had something to do with 
the running of one of them ; the other two — 
But you shall judge for yourself how far the 
Madrid Lottery was concerned in the for- 
tunes of de Castro and his friend Riccardo 
Bari. 

" Eh, Pedro/' Juan laughed, rather bit- 
terly, in answer to my comment, "but my 
money is not good money; there's too little 
of it." 

44 All money is good," I declared, — which 
you know is a fact, Sefior, however one may 
argue. "Two dollars are better than one, 
but one is very good." 

"And forty thousand is superlatively 
good," drawled Juan, provokingly. "Pedro, 
my luck must turn ! " 

I glanced away from him to watch the 
new beauty, — the dancer we had seen re- 
cently, — drive by. She was assuredly very 
lovely, and very kind if report were accurate. 
She looked, I think, with more than a pass- 

78 



DISCORDS 

ing interest at Juan, who hardly noticed her. 
That is the way with women, Sefior. They 
will always turn away from the man who 
looks at them, to the man who keeps his 
eyes to himself. People will tell you it is 
pure feminine perversity; but I think it 
goes deeper than that, though I am no phil- 
osopher. I but argue from the old tale of 
Eve and the First Garden. 

Something of the Beauty's present expres- 
sion in passing us, I had once seen in Isa- 
bella's eyes, when they rested on him, — a 
look which included curiosity, interest, de- 
sire to comprehend, and a strange, half- 
wayward, half-tender yearning. People felt 
that way about Juan. 

One night, it was soon after this, Juan and 
I sat at dinner in what we called the " Caf6 
Amo." It was alive with light and colour, 
for there were many pretty women there 
and much cigarette-smoke. The Beauty 
who had noticed Juan sat near us with Felipo 
de Lodia. She flaunted her gorgeous loveli- 
ness in our eyes as only a Cuban woman 
can, with a boldness which was quite 
inoffensive. Your women, — the Northern 
women, — cannot do that like ours, Sefior. 

79 



DISCORDS 

There is that in their slower and cooler blood 
which makes their coquetry less natural, 
less entrancing, and, I think, less delicate. 
This girl was like a child, or a graceful 
young wild thing, withal most curiously and 
prettily conscious of her beautiful self and 
her witchery. 

She rolled her white arms, showing their 
curves, and widened her great eyes till they 
were big and deep and bright as moonlit 
water. Also she threw Juan a bright red 
flower from a cluster which pressed her 
bosom and lay vividly against her white skin. 

Juan drank her health, of course, and Felipo 
de Lodia frowned. He was weak in body 
and mind and therefore jealous ; he was not 
a man of our sort and we had little enough 
to do with him or his sly ways. I have no 
patience with a man whose instinctive 
cowardice wards him away from danger, but 
who has neither the wit nor the grace to own 
himself wrong in time to save trouble. 

Then came the event. A cablegram was 
handed Juan. He tore it open quickly, and I 
fancied at the moment that I saw his hand 
tremble. Upon reading it he sprang to 
his feet and flung it up in the air, catch- 

80 



DISCORDS 

ing it again with a lunge as it fluttered past 
him. 

" Drink to me, all of you ! " he cried, at the 
top of his voice, " come, drink, I tell you ! I 
have drawn the Capital Prize in Madrid — 
drink !" 

Well, the place was pandemonium in a 
moment. Everyone loved Juan and every- 
one rejoiced in his change of luck. He was 
instantly surrounded by a wildly excited 
crowd, while congratulations rained thick 
and fast through the air, and drinks were 
passed around and his health was pledged 
again and again with a hearty good will. 
I alone was disturbed; I did not like the 
feverish gaiety of my friend's manner, and 
I was incredulous, too, of the authenticity of 
the telegram. I had never heard, you see, 
of anyone's winning anything through the 
Madrid lotteries, and I could hardly believe 
in this sudden surprising news. Still I could 
only accept the matter hopefully, and trust 
that poor Juan was not the victim of a 
mistake. 

That night, on the strength of the word 
received, we proceeded to celebrate the oc- 
casion. We ordered more and more wine 

81 



DISCORDS 

and liquor, and danced and sang and drank ; 
and we flatly refused to separate in spite of 
the protesting voice of the man who kept 
the "Cafe Amo" and was held responsible 
for its respectibility. The Beauty had long 
since deserted de Lodia, who, in spite of 
his cowardice, had challenged Juan, and my 
friend in the most debonair manner pos- 
sible had promised him satisfaction at de 
Lodia's own time and place. 

Ah, Senor, sometimes, when one is very 
old, one feels again the long-silent, dare- 
devil clash of the pulses, and again every- 
thing grows pink and golden, as though seen 
through Burgundy and champagne. One's 
feet itch to dance, and one's voice longs 
to lift itself in some old drinking-round ! 
I can sometimes dream that I am again in 
the "Cafe Amo," with those other gay fol- 
lowers of folly and of youth, with wine in 
plenty, and music, fitful but infectious. 
Again I can see Juan, as handsome as a 
god, his dark hair ruffled and his face flushed, 
grasping his wine-glass as he looked amour- 
ously at the Beauty, who sat near him, 
every line in her figure breathing fascina- 
tion. Eh, well ! We will not dwell on that. 

82 



DISCORDS 

The picture is one which is perhaps better 
forgotten. 

When dawn broke, gray and still, I was 
walking down the street toward my lodg- 
ings, wondering what was to come of this 
sudden change in de Castro's fortunes. Ha- 
vana was barely stirring awake, and the 
languid dreariness which follows a night 
spent not wisely, however well, was heavy 
upon me, causing me to take a dark view of the 
future. Let it be stated here, however, Senor, 
that I had been, as ever, most abstemious ! 

My coffee and rolls were hardly finished that 
day, before Juan was with me, looking very 
white and rather grim. It was his way when 
he had been more than usually outrageous. 

11 Come around with me to the Bank," he 
said, slowly. 

" Bank I" I gasped. The thought of Juan 
in close connection with the Havana Bank 
was too new not to be startling. 

" Yes,— the Bank. Must I repeat it ? " 

"My nerves have come out better than 
yours/ ' I informed him sweetly, as we left 
the room together, a few moments later. 

m Nerves !"he repeated, — " nerves ! Mine 
must stay by me now, such as they are ! 

83 



DISCORDS 

Listen, Pedro ! for only one thing have I — 
I mean, has this money come to me: to 
enable me to win Isabella. Her father will 
at least listen to me now. Do you not think 
so, Pedro ?" 

His voice was pitifully eager, like a child's. 

" Yes," I assured him, "if he is disposed 
to like you, I think he will listen to you now." 

" This — M went on Juan, "this will make 
it possible, — even easy perhaps " 

" M — yes," I observed. Then I could not 
help adding, " It was very considerate in 
Providence to think of that, wasn't it ? " 

He looked at me sharply, even suspi- 
ciously, but he said nothing. We were 
already at the Bank. 

Let me tell you briefly, Seiior, that Juan 
interviewed the Bank President and tried to 
induce him to look upon the cable message 
in the light of a draft, and to cash it. The 
Bank President smiled kindly, — Juan looked 
very handsome that day, and was young 
enough to be the Bank President's son, — 
and said quietly : 

" I think, Seftor, that we will wait until the 
mail-steamer comes in to corroborate your 
news. There may be a mistake, you know." 

84 



DISCORDS 

" But that is a week off ! " 

" True ; but is a week long to wait for forty 
thousand dollars ?" asked the Bank Presi- 
dent. 

" But, Sefior President, I am hard put to 
it, — I need the money ! Ah, I have it ! Will 
you not cable, yourself, to Madrid, and find 
out the number of the ticket which drew the 
Capital Prize ? Find it out from headquarters, 
Sefior President, — would not that do ? " 

"That would be conclusive, certainly," 
admitted the Bank President, thoughtfully. 
He ruminated for a few minutes, then glanced 
at Juan's handsome eager face, and smiled 
once more. 

"I will cable Madrid," he said, "and I 
will also have the advice of some of my 
Directors. Leave the number of your ticket 
with me, and your address." 

Juan became voluble with gratitude, the 
Bank President became frigid in proportion 
to his volubility, and we departed. 

I was surprised at the turn matters were 
taking, — I admit I had doubted the authen- 
ticity of that message. I was still more 
surprised when the Bank President notified 
us next day that they had cabled Madrid and 

85 



DISCORDS 

that the answer was satisfactory. Seftor 
de Castro's number had drawn the Capital 
Prize ; Sefior de Castro would be permitted 
by courtesy to receive the sum he had won, 
from the Bank, in advance. There was a 
little legal bother in the matter, — Juan being 
obliged to pledge himself to make over his 
checque when he received it, to the Bank, 
etc. I probably have that all wrong, Senor, 
I never had a head for business. I never 
thought Juan had, either ; but it seems that 
in that, as in many other matters in the 
course of my life, I was mistaken. 

Juan was rather grave when we came out 
of the Bank together, the money securely 
packed in a small bag in his hand. He had 
chosen to have it in cash, — " having debts 
to settle," he explained cheerfully. I noticed 
his quiet manner, and respected him for it. 
Evidently he was accepting the responsibili- 
ties of his recently acquired possession in 
a serious spirit. 

That day he wrote a letter to the General, 
Isabella's father, and we both waited in 
great anxiety for the reply. Juan was so 
nervous that he hardly hoped for a favour- 
able one, but, for me, I felt that his chance 

86 



DISCORDS 

was good. His letter was a particularly 
manly one, and the old General could appre- 
ciate good courage and straight speaking, as 
he had proved. Juan had not overestimated 
in his letter the possibilities of forty thou- 
sand dollars, but he had stated that sum as 
being available immediately, and had ex- 
pressed his intention of getting into some 
serious work at once. With that for capital, 
something ought to be done; this was his 
plea. Meanwhile, he asked to be permitted 
to see the General and the Seftorita Isabella 
from time to time, and to once more plead 
his case in person, — which he hoped he 
would be better able to do than on paper. 
Something to this effect he said, but it was 
put in a frank, eager way which I should 
find it difficult to copy. Juan was very 
much a boy at times, and some of that odd 
boyishness of his, together with a fair allow- 
ance of clear-minded, strong-hearted manli- 
ness, went into that letter. 

The General evidently liked the letter 
and did not feel inclined to entirely ignore 
the alteration in conditions. He did not, in 
his reply, actually mention the Capital Prize, 
but he expressed himself as being willing to 

87 



DISCORDS 

reconsider the unqualified nature of his 
answer to Sefior de Castro a short time 
before. His daughter's happiness was very 
dear to him, and she had been able to con- 
vince him in what direction it lay. If Senor 
de Castro would call on the General that 
evening they might approach a better under- 
standing of the situation and of one another. 
It was a very diplomatic, guarded letter, but 
I thought I could read in it a certain rather 
touching note of affection for his daughter. 
It seemed as though the old man had become 
convinced of the importance of Juan to his 
daughter's contentment of life, and seized, — 
albeit with a semblance of decent hesitation, 
— the first chance offered him to make mat- 
ters straight, and to promote the girl's hap- 
piness. He was an old man and not a hard 
one, save at times, and Isabella was an only 
daughter, with a pale cold way of clinging to 
her own secret grief, more potent to one who 
loved her than the storming of a virago. 

Juan held the note for some minutes in his 
hand and stared at it with a strange look 
which had in it, it seemed to me, quite as 
much of sorrow as of joy. Then he asked 
me to go for a walk with him, and we went 

88 



DISCORDS 

accordingly. How warm the sun was that 
day ! I often think of it. And the streets 
were fuller of people than was usual at the 
hour. There was an element of festivity, of 
good cheer which permeated one as one 
walked, — and the air, — ah! the air was a 
caress. 

"How is the Beauty ?" I asked, after a 
time, to bring a gayer element into his too 
serious thoughts. He started a little and 
flushed, — I thought with a touch of shame 
or of regret. 

"I have not seen her since that night," 
he told me, simply enough. In my own 
mind, I meditated quietly upon the right- 
eous, or unrighteous, rage of the Beauty if 
this were true, but I did not attempt further 
levity. 

" Now," said Juan, very softly, after a 
silence with which I was well enough 
pleased having many things to look at and 
think upon, "now begins the Golden 'Week, 
Pedro, — the week with every moment shod 
as brightly with gold as I can make it. If 
the Fates give me no more than this one 
week,— faith! I'll see to it that it is full 
measure." 

89 



DISCORDS 

Something in his voice disturbed me, for I 
could not understand it. But if I allowed 
myself to be anxious over the many things 
in life that I do not understand, I should have 
a weary lot, Sefior, so I put that matter out 
of my head and worried no more concern- 
ing it, — at the time ! 

The week, — the Golden Week as I shall 
always call it, — slipped by all too quickly 
for the lovers. The General, having per- 
mitted Juan a footing of sufferance, soon 
found that matters were beyond his control, 
had he wished to stop them. The two 
young people were foolishly, madly happy. 
I cannot help a certain resentment which 
enters my heart whenever I see such joy, — 
a resentment not against them, God knows, 
— but against Fate, Senor, who never seems 
able to let well alone, and must always have 
a finger in the most toothsome pies. It 
seems a pity, — does it not, Senor? — that 
Grief and Separation and such odious night- 
hags seem irresistibly attracted to the happy 
and smiling young Love God. They can't 
leave the pretty sprite alone, it seems. Ah, 
well! this is not a place in which to let 
one's private regrets and grudges creep in, 

90 



DISCORDS 

though we know what they are, — eh, Sefior ? 

Juan's face became filled with joy, yet a 
joy as strangely new as it was strangely 
serious. I realized now that he heartily 
and even bitterly regretted his past follies 
and dissipations, — most of all his excesses 
on that night when he had first received 
word from Madrid. This novel attitude on 
his part seemed to put my friend far away 
on a pinnacle by himself, and I sometimes 
felt strangely and sadly shut out from his 
present exalted gladness and gravity. Yet 
now and then a curious hard grim look 
leaped momentarily to his eyes, a look cal- 
culating yet reckless. Had I seen that look at 
a gaming-table I should have said: " There 
is one who has wagered everything. If he 
wins he will be rich for life. If he loses, he 
will kill himself. 1 ' 

The hot golden days and the hot silver 
nights came and passed. Those two dreamed 
away their time of good fortune with pathet- 
ic concentration of love and rapture. Each 
morning Juan went to his lady with a flush 
of expectation on his face, each night he re- 
turned with a sort of hush about him won- 
derful to note. And suddenly the week had 

9i 



DISCORDS 

gone, and it was the day before the arrival 
of the mail-steamer. And on that day Juan 
came to me very white indeed, and told me 
that something had happened which brought 
matters to a crisis. 

" What do you mean?" I said, rather 
testily, for he spoke significantly and I dis- 
trust riddles. 

" I cannot tell you exactly what I mean — 
now," said Juan, whiter than ever. "You 
will know soon enough. But this I can tell 
you. I must hurry matters, — I must bind 
Isabella to me forever, and I must do it 
quickly." 

" Are you quite mad ? " I asked. 

U I do not think so, — at least not at pres- 
ent. Perhaps I shall be before I reach the 
end of this. Only one thing remains clear 
in my mind ; Isabella must be my wife to- 
night." 

He spoke passionately, feverishly and with 
a note of panic in his voice. I stared at him, 
doing my best to understand. 

" You are going to marry the Sefiorita to- 
day ? " I asked him, at last, calmly. When 
one is quite dazed one is of necessity calm, 
all emotion being out of the question. 

92 



DISCORDS 

" I am." He spoke definitely, and straight- 
ened up as he said it. 
" Does she know it ? " 
" No. But she will marry me." 
I looked at him and shook my head be- 
wildered. Yet I was bound to acknowledge 
to myself that, as he looked then, he might 
carry that or any other point. 

And, as a matter of fact, by some reason- 
ing or lover-like lack of reasoning, he did 
win Senorita Isabella's consent to this mad 
and ill-timed marriage. At sun-down she 
was going to mass. He would join her and 
they would be married. The old General 
was not to know until the next day, or such 
time as Isabella chose to divulge it, — but 
Juan argued, I do not doubt, that he would 
not be too angry with them, having already 
shown much indulgence and leniency. In 
any case, Isabella was to be Isabella de 
Castro by nightfall. When Juan told me 
this his face flushed deeply, and a look came 
into his eyes which was a new surprise to 
me. "And — to-morrow," he added, almost 
inarticulately, "I shall not care what hap- 
pens. Pedro ! — she will be my wife — 
to-night!" 

93 



DISCORDS 

Quite like Romeo and Juliet, poor things ! 
— quite like Romeo and Juliet. At this late 
date I cannot seem to remember whether or 
not the traditional rope-ladder was added to 
the preparations. I am inclined to think 
that it must have been. 

"She will be my wife — to-night !" had 
murmured Juan, in the mock-omnipotence 
of love. But the good God adjusts our 
plans, Senor, to suit His sublime judgment. 
Undoubtedly it is for the best, but it is apt 
to be exasperating. 

Felipo de Lodia, who had apparently 
been fabricating a fictitious courage during 
the past week, chose this day to arrange his 
long-deferred duel with Juan, — the duel in 
connection with the Beauty. I will still 
call her so, Senor, — 'tis a title widely applic- 
able in Cuba, and therefore does her no 
injury. I am told that she has since 
become so respectable that it would look 
like shocking impertinence on my part 
to mention her name together with a duel 
in Havana, and when a woman has the 
good sense to keep her own eccentric 
affairs to herself, she deserves encourage- 
ment. 

94 



DISCORDS 

Juan received Felipo de Lodia's challenge 
with a stony face, and told the second who 
brought it that he had an engagement for the 
hour, just before sun-down, appointed by de 
Lodia. The man dared, to my disgust, say 
something about the convenience of some 
engagements, which, also to my disgust, 
settled the matter. Juan said, of course, 
that it would give him the greatest possible 
pleasure to run through Seftor de Lodia at 
the time suggested, and to run through his 
second afterward. Indeed, he declared, 
suavely, the temptation was so great that 
he would postpone his engagement rather 
than run the risk of losing the opportunity 
altogether. He realized, he ended with a 
malicious inflection, that it might not be 
offered him again ! 

The man went out, angry enough with his 
reception, I do not doubt, and I cannot in the 
least blame him. As soon as we were alone 
Juan turned to me with a curious smile. He 
said nothing but I burst out, — " It is an 
abominable shame!" hotly sympathetic. 
Where was the proposed marriage with 
Isabella, where the Romeo and Juliet 
romance, where the rope-ladder ? Juan 

95 



DISCORDS 

'would have to keep in retirement for a few 
days even if he were so discreet as to merely 
wound de Lodia slightly. Blindly I realized, 
while seeing no cause, that Juan had had 
some great and definite reason for wishing 
the marriage to take place that night ; so 
blindly I pitied him, and condoled with him 
in the witless way of friends. 

" No," he said, " it is only fate. It has " 

He stopped suddenly, and, after a short 
moment of hesitation, ended, "it has saved 
me, Pedro, from the greatest wrong of all the 
many great wrongs the reckoning for which 
I must soon meet." 

He wrote a few letters after that, and then 
went out alone, though it was in the hot 
hours of the siesta. I went back to my own 
quarters and did not see him until late in 
the afternoon, when he came in looking 
rather worn as to face, but with a hard, cool 
look about his mouth which I knew yet did 
not know. We went together to the place 
de Lodia had appointed. It was a wonderful 
afternoon with a special and rare brilliancy 
upon everything and a heavy sweetness in 
the air. 

The duel was a swift one, and as pretty as 

96 



DISCORDS 

anything of the kind which I have ever seen. 
Juan wounded de Lodia very soon, though 
in truth he really let his adversary play 
about untouched for several minutes out of 
pure courtesy. The wound was a slight one, 
but enough, we all decided, and he and I 
strolled homeward just as the sun dropped 
down out of sight. 

When I suggested that a trip into the coun- 
try for a day or two might be expedient he 
shook his head. When I further mentioned 
the hour and remarked that he might still 
join Isabella at mass, he almost turned on me. 

" God, man ! " he cried, " don't you see ? I 
came to my senses in time. I sent her word 
concerning the duel, and put the temptation 
behind me. Are you Satan yourself that 
you revive it again ? " 

Satan himself! I put it to you, Seftor, 
was that friendly or grateful ? However, he 
quickly apologized, and I could not bear 
malice where Juan was concerned. Still, I 
felt dejected and utterly at sea, I frankly 
confess. 

" Pedro/' he said, at last, "you may have 
known that I was a scoundrel, but perhaps 
you never suspected that I was an out-and- 

97 



DISCORDS 

out blackguard and an out-and-out thief. 
Come with me to the Bank and see me prove 
myself both.' ' 

Now, I knew by his voice just how serious 
this matter was to be, so I went trembling. 
I had no doubt of his villainy, Sefior, for I 
believed in his estimate of himself; but I 
loved him. 

We were shown into the Bank President's 
private office. I was shaking, but Juan was 
quite cool. 

" Sefior President," he said, as the older 
man, smiling kindly, looked up at him, "I 
have come to break to you bad news, — very 
bad news." 

"What news, Senor?" asked the Presi- 
dent, smiling still. 

"It is this," said Juan; "that I have not 
the smallest idea that my number drew the 
Capital Prize in Madrid n 

The President leaped to his feet. 

" What are you talking about ? " he cried. 

"Of course, it is possible that it has," 
continued Juan, "but I think it is one of the 
most unlikely possibilities in the world. I 
have not the faintest knowledge as to what 
number did come out ahead, but it would 

98 



DISCORDS 

be hardly short of miraculous if it were 
mine." 

The Bank President looked at him with a 
frozen gaze. 

"I think you must have gone mad," he 
said. " Do you not know that every pre- 
caution was taken to verify the fact ? We 
cabled- — " 

" Yes, Seftor President. And my accom- 
plice is Riccardo Bari, the operator at Key 
West. You see the matter lay easily in his 
hands. His work consisted in the manage- 
ment of one small detail. Your cable went 
through all right, asking for the number 
which had drawn the Prize. When he re- 
ceived the answer from Madrid, he merely 
changed the number cited to the number of 
my ticket, and repeated the message duly with 
that one small, undiscoverable alteration." 

The Bank President and I were almost 
equally paralyzed ; but I think he felt worst. 
We both waited, seeing that further state- 
ments were to follow from this surprising 
man who stood there, rather white but quite 
immovable, and confessed his fraud with 
complete coolness and lack of embarrass- 
ment. 

99 



DISCORDS 

" I have looked up Spanish law in Cuba, 
Sefior President," pursued Juan, "and I 
find that the penalty for obtaining money 
under false pretenses is fifteen years im- 
prisonment. My friend Bari and I are quite 
prepared to go. I have been settling my 
affairs with that end in view, and I can 
answer for him that he will make no effort 
to leave Key 'West before the officers reach 
there.' ' 

"Where is the money ?" burst from the 
Bank President, with extreme violence. 

" Quite safe, Sefior President, in the hands 
of Bari's friends, where we can easily obtain 
it at the end of our terms of imprisonment. M 

The President leaned forward and moist- 
ened his dry lips. Twice he tried to speak 
in vain, then with an air of proposing a busi- 
ness transaction he said : 

" If you will give up that money this mat- 
ter shall never reach the ears of the police." 

" You do not understand, Sefior President. 
If we were afraid of arrest why did we not 
escape with the money instead of confessing 
it? We planned this long ago, Bari and I. 
We agreed that the life of criminals in hiding 
would be unpleasing to us, — to me particu- 

ioo 



DISCORDS 

larly. Bari would have been willing to have 
taken his chances, I think. This is entirely 
my own plan, but he fully agrees to it, and 
it would be unfair for me to back out now, 
after having induced him to enter the game 
■with me." 

The President, rather pale and exceedingly 
blank as to expression, stared at him. 

"Good God, man!" he said, "you are a 
gentleman ; what made you invent such a 
damnable fraud as this ? " 

A sudden, very hot colour stained my 
friend's face, but he said not one word. I 
caught his arm. 

"Juan, give it up," I besought, almost be- 
side myself, " you are no thief! " 

" You neither of you seem to understand," 
he said, dully. " Bari has risked everything 
to have this money, fifteen years hence at the 
latest. He wants to come out then and find 
his money waiting for him to use, not as a 
thief, but as a man who has honestly paid 
the penalty and worked for his fortune." 

The Bank President fell back in his chair 
and raised a futile hand toward Heaven. 

11 Merciful powers," he muttered, weakly, 
— quite beyond connected, much less elabo- 

IOI 



DISCORDS 

rate speech, — " The reasoning ! — Great God ! 
— His reasoning ! — His preposterous, infernal 
reasoning ! M Words failed him. 

" I have risked everything," went on Juan, 
quietly, " for one week's chance. I would do 
it again for this short, golden week. It was 
worth it all and I do not regret my part in 
it." He was looking at me. He knew that 
I would understand his unspoken reference 
to Isabella. " I wanted a chance, — I had it, 
and I took it. Had it not been for de Lodia, 
Pedro, I should have taken more than was 
mine by right — to-night. I should have 
married her.. .married to a felon ! M He had 
quite forgotten the Bank President. " One 
thing, Pedro, I will swear to you. When I 
come out — of prison, I shall never, — so help 
me Heaven! — touch one penny of that 
damnable money." 

The Bank President in all his trouble 
stared at him with an amazement which 
wavered between curiosity and a perverse 
admiration. 

"You are the most extraordinary fellow 
that the Lord ever made," he remarked. 
"You seem to have committed a felony for 
the sake of possessing a large sum of money 

102 



DISCORDS 

for one week. You are now going to prison 
for it, on your own voluntary confession, 
and you are swearing never to touch a penny 
of it when you are free, after all ! " 

Juan's expression, as he looked at him, I 
can only term acknowledgment. 

" I think you are beginning to understand," 
he said. " I had intended to use that money 
when I was free, Sefior President. It was 
my plan, — a villain's plan, villainously exe- 
cuted. But — Seiior, since last week I have 
become betrothed to a lady. But for a 
strange chance I should be her bridegroom 
to-night. Can you understand better now? " 

The President's face was astonishingly 
comprehending. 

" Yes," he said, " I think I can. You have 
paid a great price, Sefior, for your golden 
week, as you call it, — fifteen years of free- 
dom, and your share of forty thousand dol- 
lars! So you cannot be induced or bribed 
to give the money up ? " 

" It was my plan, — I keep to it," said Juan, 
briefly. " Anything else would be unfair to 
Riccardo Bari, as well as cowardly on my 
part. I am not a coward, Sefior, if I am a 
criminal. I am quite ready to pay." 

103 



DISCORDS 

Juan wrote one very short note to the 
Senorita Isabella, and in it he stated the 
case. He was certain, and even I believed, 
that she would send him some message of 
love and absolution before he went to prison. 
But you cannot trust those snow-white, 
high-born, cold-featured women, Seiior, 
when it comes to emergencies. She re- 
turned his note with a vehement "Fare- 
well" dashed across it, — and nothing more. 

The Beauty behaved differently. When 
Juan was taken to jail there was a violent 
feeling of resentment among his friends. 
His departure was made a triumphal proces- 
sion, and among those who pressed to see 
him was the Beauty. She kissed her hands 
to him, not coquettishly but passionately, 
and her face was disfigured by tears. But 
Juan hardly seemed to see her. His eyes, 
hungry and tragic, lifted themselves to the 
Seiiorita's window as he passed under it. 
She might, I thought, have waved to him, 
but no, — there was not a sign of her. 

So he went on ; and it was to have been 
the first morning after his marriage, too ! 
Ah, well, Senor, life is a queer thing, and it 
is better not to think about it too much. 

104 



DISCORDS 

The Beauty married, ten years later, and is 
a great lady now, but I have heard that she 
has never forgotten de Castro. To my mind, 
her's was the better love, — warmer, more 
comforting, and less fatally clear of sight. 
Indeed, perhaps the true clarity of vision is 
a tender blindness, Sefior, — who can say ? 

In due time Juan came out of prison, and 
made a fair living, but he never would touch 
a penny of those ill-gotten gains. Bari is out 
too, — a rich man, of course. And Isabella ? 
Oh, she married de Castro ; declares that she 
went into conventual retirement until he 
was freed. Well, Juan has what he wishes, 
— though I always preferred the Beauty, 
poor soul ! — and I suppose, under the cir- 
cumstances, he does not even now grudge 
the price he paid for his Golden "Week and 
what it brought him. As for his wife, no 
woman who has Juan would change places 
with our Regent ! — a rare fellow with women 
is Juan. 

I have told a long tale, Sefior! But when 
one lets oneself drift back into those old 
days, one forgets how to be brief and to the 
point ! They were good days, — good days, 
Sefior! But they are all gone. 

105 



"AND IN THE FIRE 
OF SPRING" 



DISCORDS 



«&n& in tfje JFtre of 



€* 




O you will not return 
to Paris for the pres- 
ent ? Not even though 
it is May, the height of 
the season ? " 

"No; I am growing so 
young again, I have no 
wish to leave — Olym- 
pus, may I call it ? The 

atmosphere is so very Greek, it suggests 

Olympus ! " 

Mme. Lefevre smiled her wistful, fleeting 

smile, as her long fingers shaped the red 

wax which littered her modelling-table. 

She was tall and very slender, and her hair 

was softly-blended flaxen and gray. She 

owned to thirty-seven, but she did not look 

more than thirty. 

" Ah, well, " she said, "Olympus is glad 

that you will stay. Sometimes we grow 

lonely among the gods." 

Her metaphor was not too far-fetched nor 

109 



DISCORDS 

inapplicable, for casts in marble and plaster 
glimmered all about the room, and seemed 
to dream of the Golden Age and ancient 
Greece. The room was large and dim and 
cool, and through it blew breezes fresh from 
the sea. The two broad, open windows 
were framed in the hanging clusters of a wis- 
taria vine that climbed and twined outside. 
Though salt air and measured surf-notes 
bespoke the near presence of the ocean, there 
was no glimpse of it through the window. 
Mme. Lefevre lived high on the cliffs, and 
from where the two sat the horizon-line was 
invisible. The only outlook was the pale blue 
sky, — two great squares of infinite faint-hued 
space, framed in the hanging wistaria blooms. 

Mme. Lefevre's companion's eyes included 
windows, room and graceful occupant in a 
long panoramic glance full of conscious satis- 
faction, and luxurious content. He was an 
angular man, a trifle worn, a trifle gray, with 
just a touch of cynicism in his mouth, dis- 
pelled at intervals by his slow but not un- 
kindly smile, a man with clean-cut features, 
and uncommunicative gray eyes. 

Paul Carthier, the successful banker, was 
rusticating near the sea. His luck, as usual 

no 



DISCORDS 

beneficent, had given him letters to Mme. 
Lef6vre, a rich, beautiful and eccentric 
widow, who lived, modelled and read in a 
lonely house on lonely cliffs, and who, before 
she abandoned the world and its ways, had 
been one of the most charming of Parisian 
belles. They understood each other, the 
graceful woman, — with the piquant silver 
touches in her fair hair, which looked as 
though they had been put there by a powder- 
puff to enhance her fairness, — and the world- 
weary man. How or why they should be 
in sympathy, they never knew, but from the 
beginning Paul Carthier had rejoiced in a 
sense of rest and comfortable absence of 
discord or effort, which always seemed to 
greet him at the door of Mme. Lefevre's 
work-room. And, on her part, she liked to 
listen to his keen, careless views of men and 
things, she liked to see the world again in 
his crisp and vivid utterance ; and his appre- 
ciation of herself and her surroundings was 
pleasant to her. 

She was not a " professional sculptress," 
as she often explained, and merely toyed 
with the classic art with her slender, grace- 
ful fingers. Carthier was glad that she was 

in 



DISCORDS 

■mirwnnrni — |— —————— —--—-■— - ■■!■■■■■ him in — iii—i— i ■■■ ■■■■——»■ 

not too great, and did not take her ambitions 
too seriously. The room in which they sat 
was undeniably the room of one to whom 
beauty was a passion, in any case, and with 
a distinct sensation of delight he noted the 
splendid bare spaces where the big white 
gods were fitly honoured, and were not forced 
to suffer the indignity of ignoble companion- 
ship. No "bric-a-brac," no modern art, no 
"ornaments" desecrated the room. Mme. 
Lefevre was Asiatic in her belief that one 
beautiful thing at a time was as much as man's 
limited appreciation could adequately grasp. 

" It would be wicked not to be young and 
happy to-day," said Carthier. "It is May, 
Madame! — May, and the sun is shining 
outside ! " 

"Ah, to be sure," she said lightly, "it is 
May. Even the old grow young again in 

May. It is only the dead " She checked 

herself. " It is hard that the access of 
strength should not mean the access of 
peace," she mused aloud. 

Carthier looked at her enquiringly. 

" I mean," she pursued, "that this infusion 
of light and life which enters the veins in 
spring should bring with it the repose of 

112 



DISCORDS 

power, instead of warring impulses, and 
beating blood." 

Carthier laughed. 

" Had you ever * warring impulses ' in your 
life ? " he asked, audaciously. 

"I? I am full of them, — far too full of 
them for a quiet, lonely lady approaching 
middle life ! " She laughed softly, and lightly 
pressed the wax she held into the delicate 
semblance of a face. In her odd, touching 
voice she quoted as though to her own inner 
ears : 

" ' Come, — fill the Cup and in the Fire of Spring, 
Your Winter Garment of Repentance fling. 
The Bird of Time has but a little way 
To fly, and lo ! the Bird is on the Wing ! ' " 

" * Your winter garment of repentance ! ' " 
repeated Carthier. " Repentance — penance ! 
Do you believe in hidden penance ? " 

" Surely.' ' 

" I mean penance in the mind, the soul. Not 
fasting nor yet prayer, but that inner scourg- 
ing which is caused not from a sense of 
religion but of justice. At intervals, I repair 
to some inner Inquisition and ask myself 
whether or not I am fit to mix with my 
fellow men ! " 

113 



DISCORDS 

" How dark a record you must have ! " 
She laughed, but she looked more attentive 
than before. 

" Once upon a time," said Carthier, speak- 
ing in a very casual manner, " a man asked 
me for help and I refused it. He was a 
blackguard, but, as I found out afterward, he 
happened to be in extreme need, and I was 
— or had been — his friend, you see. He came 
to me to borrow the money that was to save 
him from ruin. I did not believe his story; 
I had heard it very often from his lips and, 
after yielding, had very often found that what 
I had let him have had gone — well, I would 
rather not mention how. I refused, and, I 
think, put it rather brutally. He besought 
me again, more pressingly; I ordered him 
out. Next day he shot himself." 

Mme. Lefevre very softly pushed away the 
lumps of red wax, and stared at him. 

"The broken sword; and the piece fits — 
the piece fits," she whispered, enigmatically. 
Aloud she said : 

"Your < winter garment of repentance' is 
a heavy and burdensome one, Monsieur. It is, 
I admit, a very serious sin to withhold one's 
hand from the friend who appeals to one." 

114 



DISCORDS 

Carthier flushed, painfully; his eyes 
seemed pleading for more gentle censure. 
But he said no word. Mme. Lefevre sat 
motionless, her elbows upon the modelling- 
table, her chin upon her white hands, her 
eyes cast down. 

" So this soft spring season does not bring 
a uniform peace," she said, as though she 
pondered deeply. "You have remorse, and 
I — perhaps, Monsieur, your special act of 
cruelty affects me the more deeply because 
it calls to mind an episode in my own life 
the memory of which will always be a hard 
one. I was betrothed, Monsieur, when I 
was very young, to the man I loved — rare, 
indeed, among French girls, but my parents 
desired my happiness above all things. The 
engagement was not known outside the 
family, but would be soon. One day my 
father came to me and told me that my lover 
was ruined, disgraced, and that I could 
never see him again. I demanded speech 
with him; it was finally allowed me. He 
came — he talked to me for the last time. He 
was in debt, he had no way of getting out of 
it — he was hopeless. He had appealed to a 
man, a friend, who was in a position to help 

"5 



DISCORDS 

him. The friend had refused. My poor boy- 
clasped me in his arms for good-bye, after 
telling me this, and rushed from the house. 
Next day he killed himself/ ' 

She spoke very calmly and quietly, and 
still patted the red wax. Only in a curious 
hard look about her lips was it possible to 
read her intimate suffering in the brief 
tragedy she had related. 

" A sad little story, Monsieur, is it not ? " 
she continued. " It is all my romance. 
Shortly after I made the usual marriage of 
convenience. M. Lefevre was a good man; 
when he died I came here to live. Only one 
definite desire remains in my heart, Mon- 
sieur. I want to see the man who refused 
my lover the help so entirely in his power to 
give. I hated him — I hated him. To-day I 
hate him still. 9 ' 

She spoke tranquilly, but her eyes were 
quite implacable. 

" What a good hater ! " said Carthier, half 
jestingly. " And is it all to no purpose ? 
Have you no clue to his identity ? " 

1 ' I never heard his name — but I have vowed 
to find him, and God respects and aids a vow 
like that. My God is the God of the Scrip- 

116 



DISCORDS 

tures. Some day my enemy will be placed 
in my power, — I do not know how, but God 
knows. I shall be able to hurt him, through 
his love or his ambition or his remorse or 
his pride — the way will be pointed out to 
me, and I shall have power to punish him. 
I have prayed, and God will not remain deaf 
forever." 

Something in her voice and quiet bearing 
chilled her listener strangely. How calm 
she was ! — how exquisite ! — and how won- 
derfully stern in her half Pagan, half fanatical 
determination. 

<( Do you know," he said, "that there is 
something primitive and savage about you 
at this moment ? You, who in some ways 
are the last breath of civilized and delicate 
womanhood! " 

" Many of us are in reality primitive/' she 
responded, tranquilly. " We wear well-built 
clothes if we are men, and Paquin gowns 
if we are women, but in our hearts we are 
as naked as Aphrodite there, or Apollo, or 

Bacchus " she indicated the glimmering 

white shapes about them. 

" You are hard," he said, quietly. " I would 
have sworn you were as gentle and as fine 

117 



DISCORDS 

as your wistaria blowing about in the wind 
outside the window. But you are hard. 
Surely one may forget one's old grudges in 
May." 

She shook her head. 

Then she slowly loosened from a long 
chain about her neck upon which dangled 
various metal and jewelled objects, a tiny 
silver cross. 

"I gave this to — him — when we were 
betrothed," she said. "When he died some 
one, kinder than the others, sent it back to 
me. I think, at the very last, when — they 
found him,— he asked them to. There was 
a little drop of blood dried onto it, — it had 
been in his pocket, you see, and the pistol... 
I have kept it close to my heart these twelve 
years, and I have told it in the name of our 
love, his and mine, that I would never rest 
or know happiness until that man was in my 
power." 

She sat silent, holding the little cross in 
her fingers. 

" And you love him still ? " asked Carthier, 
very gently. His heart gave a throb of pain, as 
he spoke. What love — what love ! he 
thought, within his soul. Had the dead 

118 



DISCORDS 

boy been worth it ? he wondered. Prob- 
ably better worth it than — He bowed his 
head. 

" You have no right to ask," she said, very 
white. "He was my lover — I vowed — " 
Her voice was broken. " That is enough ! " 
she ended, almost fiercely. 

"How will you find the man you have 
vowed to punish ?" asked Carthier, with a 
weary realization that he must carry the 
talk beyond dangerous personalities. To 
his surprise she leaned forward and looked 
with an odd, searching stare straight into 
his eyes. 

" Monsieur," she said, deliberately, "have 
you ever heard the story of Iseult of Ireland ? 
Her betrothed, Morold, was slain by a knight 
whom she had never seen, and who mock- 
ingly sent home to her the severed head of 
her lover. She preserved the splinter of 
steel which she found imbedded in the skull 
and sought near and far for the sword with 
a nick in the blade into which that sliver 
would exactly fit. At last, in a blade which 
lay at the bedside of a wounded minstrel 
whom she was tending, she found a broken 
place, and the piece of steel fitted into it." 

119 



DISCORDS 

"Yes, I have heard the story," said Car- 
thier. " Well, and do you expect to find 
your enemy by the same means?" He 
smiled. 

" No, Monsieur, because I have already 
found him." 

Carthier looked at her, but half compre- 
hending. 

"The name of the man to whom I was 
betrothed was Gaston de Gris," cried Mme. 
Lefevre, in a clear voice. 

Carthier started upright. 

"Is it possible?" he gasped. "Good 
heavens ! De Gris ! " 

"The piece fits, Monsieur, the piece fits ! " 
she said, facing him. Then she hid her face 
in her hands. " You ! " she murmured, 
brokenly, — " it was you who failed him. My 
enemy! — you! " 

In the silence that followed Carthier came 
one step nearer to her, and then stopped 
short, clenching his hands in the impotence 
of his position. Outside the waves could be 
heard faintly, lapping — lapping, at the foot of 
the cliff. A fisherman, just pushing off, sang 
a love-song in a minor key; it was a queer, 
sobbing, uneven thing, with a sea-lilt in it. 

120 



DISCORDS 

"Madame," at last said Carthier, very 
low, "you have been praying God for re- 
venge these past twelve years— it is in your 
hands. You have asked that the man whom 
you hated should be placed in your power ; 
he is here, Madame. And I will tell you 
how to wound and punish him: in his — " 
His voice broke, and he paused. 

" In his love for you, Madame," he ended, 
simply. 

Mme. Lefevre started as though in horror. 
She caught up the little silver cross, and 
pressed it convulsively to her heart ; on her 
lips was an unspoken prayer. 

"Do not stop me," continued Carthier, 
softly and gravely, " I am trying to show 
you that my punishment is even greater than 
any which you could devise. To know that 
you have in your heart a grave to love and 
weep over, to know that you are predis- 
posed, in any case, to hate me, — to know — 
Ah, Madame ! You have not prayed to the 
good God in vain. Truly your God is the 
God of the Scriptures, and is not deaf for- 
ever." His voice was very bitter as he 
spoke the last words. 

The refrain of the fisherman's love-song 

121 



DISCORDS 

floated inland like a ghost of sound. And 
the waves were still lapping — lapping against 
the foot of the cliff. In through the open 
windows, — the broad windows framed in 
clustering wistaria-blooms that moved in 
shadowy silhouettes against the pale blue 
sky, — blew the salt wind. And all about, 
stood the kindly white deities, smiling for 
the most part, as though they watched a 
comedy. Who should know better than 
they the things that count and that do not ? 

Suddenly Mme. Lefdvre flung the little 
silver cross from her, and burst into a passion 
of tears. 

" It is too late to change — my whole life," 
she cried, brokenly, her face hidden in her 
hands, "you are asking me to forget — every- 
thing." 

Carthier started violently, and the blood 
poured into his face. Yet he steadied his 
voice and did not advance one step closer to 
her. 

" I am asking you — nothing, Madame," he 
said. " I am — asking — you — nothing. I am 
only telling you that — I love you." 

Then he stood, breathless, and awaited 
his sentence. 

122 



DISCORDS 

" Ah ! " murmured Mme. Letevre, drawing 
her hands away from her tear-stained face. 
"You said, Monsieur, that spring could 
make even the old young. But if one has 
been — dead — these many years ?" 

Carthier was at her side. 

"It is the season of resurrection," he 
whispered. 



123 



AN EXPERIMENT 
IN SOULS 



DISCORDS 

&n tf spmmtnt in Bonis 




N,DOUBTEDLY the 

($ fJT^^KSr^iS boy can sing, but he 

has no soul. Truly he 
is but a Necker such as 
the poets sing of. He 
was born without a 
soul! ,, 

So spoke the Master, 
with a petulance most 
unprecedented. The Master was not wont 
to take so much heed to his pupils, nor to 
their souls, and his sister raised her eyes 
toward him in slight amazement. Madame 
Perrinat, the Master* sister and assistant, 
was beautiful. Further, she was intensely 
artistic, and quite unscrupulous. Yet she 
was not a bad woman, which is a paradox, 
yet truthful. 

" Tiens, Philippe," she remarked, sensibly, 
answering her brother's testiness. " Get him 
a soul." 

"And where, I ask you? 7 demanded the 
Maitre Philippe, with a rising inflection. 

127 



DISCORDS 

" Where does one find a factory where they 
manufacture souls ? " 

Madame stretched herself, and half closed 
her sleepy dark eyes. 

" You have spoken of the Necker, mon 
frere, — you remember how the Necker 
always found a soul ? — Through love ! — Ah, 
yes, truly! Alors, let the boy fall in love." 

The Master laughed, his rare deep laugh. 
" Bien, — that is a good idea, Fran<;oise! 
With whom, then ? Not Liselle ? " 

Madame laughed shrilly. Liselle was their 
convent-bred niece, a little pale wisp of a 
thing, with reddish hair and not the dimmest 
comprehension of art nor of life. Love and 
Liselle ! — Madame laughed for some mo- 
ments. 

Suddenly her laughter broke on her lips 
into a silence which made the Master look 
at her. She seemed to be considering some- 
thing quite new, and her face was grave. 

"Of what are you thinking, Franqoise ? " 
asked the Master, anxiously. 

"I am thinking," said Madame, slowly, 
"that I like experiments. And an experi- 
ment in souls — Dieu! There would be some 
excitement there I " A light leaped into her 

128 



DISCORDS 

eyes. " What if I undertake it, this experi- 
ment ? " she cried, quickly. " What if I give 
the boy his soul?" 

The Master stared at her. 

"You — Francjoise! You are fifteen years 
older than he ! Also, it is dangerous, experi- 
menting with souls. Suppose in giving one 
to him, you should play havoc with your 
own?" 

Madame laughed recklessly. 

"I will take the risk, I," she exclaimed. 
" Bien, Philippe, — I undertake it, this experi- 
ment in souls !" 

The Master raised his hand hastily. 

"It is Jeannot himself who comes," he 
said. 

A slender, yellow-haired boy, older in 
reality than he looked, came in laughing. 
He was Jean de Bonfoi, known to his 
intimates as Jeannot, and he was the son of 
one of the Master's old friends. Jeannot's 
marvellous tenor voice was only less re- 
markable than his extraordinary absence of 
responsibility, of gravity, of sentiment. The 
Master had said well, — the boy had no soul. 
Or if a soul lurked somewhere behind those 
boyish yet mocking eyes, it had not yet 

129 



DISCORDS 

raised its wings, — not yet made itself known. 

It was time for the morning singing lesson, 
and Maitre Philippe lost no time in begin- 
ning. To-day, Madame remained in the 
room, flung in a cat-like, comfort-seeking 
pose among the cushions on the divan. 
Jeannot sang, and as he sang he must 
perforce catch her eyes now and then. 
Madame's eyes were worth remembering, — 
the quick, strange way in which they dilated 
and narrowed had a peculiar fascination 
which was difficult to analyze. When the 
lesson was over, she stirred for the first 
time, and sat upright. 

"Now, brother Philippe/' she said, "you 
have filled his head full of scales and trills 
and shakes. Come here beside me, Jeannot, 
and I will try to make you forget them all ! " 
She laughed softly as she spoke, and, as 
Jeannot came toward her, the Master left the 
room, his confidence in his sister's intelli- 
gence warring with a certain distrust of her 
present methods. 

Madame had never talked with Jeannot 
before for any length of time. She found him 
quick,— almost witty, indeed, — and most ap- 
preciative. But he laughed at everything, 

130 



DISCORDS 

at life, at love, at death, and at the hereafter. 
There was something uncanny in the sound 
of that careless, short laugh of his, coming 
from so young a mouth. A handsome, 
lovable mouth it was, — this Madame noticed. 
She also perceived the tone of curious blue- 
purple which made his eyes so attractive 
and unusual. 

" Tiens," she said at last, looking full at 
him, — her voice was as vibrant and as sweet 
as a note of music. " You are a very dear 
boy. So away, now. I have some letters 
to write before degeuner." 

She did not offer him her hand, but laid it 
lightly on his arm for a moment. Then, after 
he had gone, she sat, wrapped in dreams, 
for quite twenty minutes, and was only 
awakened from this most seductive revery 
by the rather shrill sound of Liselle's voice. 

" Truly, tna tante" she was asserting in a 
high key, "this is a most evil and dreadful 
land. I desire greatly to return to the dear 
sisters and learn more crochet-stitches." 

"Do not talk so loud," said Madame, 
sharply. " Your voice deafens me. No, 
child, forgive me. I spoke without thought. 
Are you indeed so wretched away from your 

131 



DISCORDS 

convent? But come upstairs with me, and 
we will talk together.' ' 

Summer, — hot, sweet, full of suggestive 
sounds and scents, — drifted by. Hardly a 
month had passed before Madame woke to 
the knowledge that her experiment in souls 
had carried her into deeper 'water than she 
had dreamed probable. She discovered, by 
slow processes rather than through any 
flash of revelation, that she loved Jeannot, 
intensely — as she could love. And she 
dreamed, imagined, even believed, that a 
certain maturity had come to the boy's mind 
of late. He spoke more gently, more seri- 
ously now, and laughed less mockingly. He 
sang little, save at his lessons, and these did 
not go well. He would not practice his 
exercises, the Master complained. 

The sultry weather had irritated the nerves 
of all of them before August had gone by. 
Even Liselle was aroused from her stilted 
phrases and methodical ways, and was more 
than once found by her aunt in a passion of 
tears. It was a strange summer. 

Still Madame clung passionately to her 
" experiment " — so much more than an ex- 
periment now. A soul of much strength, 

132 



DISCORDS 

fire and scope had been given to Fran$oise 
Perrinat when she was born — a life of 
struggle and toil had developed it, — a pas- 
sionate love affair and early widowhood had 
given it knowledge and poise. And it was 
this soul which she was tearing into atoms to 
serve Jeannot de Bonfoi, and to win his love. 

Not for one moment did she doubt the cer- 
tainty of her success. It was quite impossible, 
clearly, that such whole-hearted love as hers 
should be without return, without completion 
or crown. Sometimes it angered her to realize 
that she had given her heart to a foolish, 
careless boy, but, after all, she argued to her 
wise self, there is no fitness nor unfitness in 
love's eyes. These things are regulated by 
strange and unseen laws,— and Madame 
knew that no accumulated proof that Jeannot 
was the last person on earth whom she 
should love would affect her. As for the 
matter of age, she could afford to laugh at 
that when she looked in the glass and saw 
her dark, brilliant face, — always beautiful — 
now young again through love. 

One hot night full of electric-seeming 
silences, Madame stood with Jeannot on the 
verandah. The honey-suckle, climbing all 

133 



DISCORDS 

about them, shook in a short-lived wind. 
The scent blew in their faces and quickened 
their breath. Honey-suckle perfume seemed 
to pervade the universe. 

"Ah, it is beautiful, — the night," sighed 
Madame, speaking tremulously because she 
feared the stillness. " And to-morrow I go 
far from here — to visit a friend. You will 
miss me, Jeannot ? " 

" You are going away ? " he said, as though 
startled. " I did not know." 

" No, I would not tell you. It is Made- 
leine Calmont — la pauvre; — she needs me, 
having lost her child. You will miss me, 
Jeannot?" 

The repetition of the words disturbed him. 
He frowned in the darkness, yet, hesitatingly, 
he put out his hand and touched her arm. 
It was bare and warm, and it seemed to thrill 
under his fingers. 

Suddenly, Madame turned and, half dis- 
traught with the sweetness of the night and 
the sadness of the parting, put her hands 
upon his shoulders and leaned against him. 
Instinctively his arms closed about her and 
they stood so for a heart-beat. Then Madame 
drew his face to hers and swiftly kissed him. 

134 



DISCORDS 

After which she vanished within and did not 
see him again before she left. 

She was gone a month, but she was not 
unhappy, for she had many things upon 
which to dream, and she now felt certain 
that Jeannot was growing to love her, and 
that he was finding his soul. It would have 
amazed Maitre Philippe had he been able to 
know precisely the working of his sister's 
mind at just that period. 

It was the end of September when Madame 
came home. All the way her heart was 
singing. All the way she was saying to 
herself, — " He will have learned, through my 
absence, his own heart.' ' So often had she 
dreamed of the moment when she would 
enter the hall and pause at the door of the 
music-room that the actual occurrence of 
these things seemed like the repetition of 
familiar events. It also seemed eminently 
in keeping that she should hear Jeannot's 
beautiful voice, singing, as she crossed the 
threshold of the house. It was all quite 
natural and proper, only ... As she stood 
there listening to the music, she suddenly 
raised her hands to her heart and lifted her 
face with a jerk, transfixed by a dawning 

135 



DISCORDS 

knowledge. Never before had Jeannot sung 
like that. Madame did not feel her gloves 
and handkerchief drop from her hands, did 
not know that the tears were running down 
her cheeks. Jeannot was singing, "Ah, 
Lfeve-toi, Soliel," by Gounod, and he was 
singing it with a passion and a power at 
which to marvel. 

"Ah, Dieu!" whispered Madame, with 
shut eyes and quivering lips, "he has found 
the soul, — I hear it! — Ah, Dieu de bonie, 
Dieu de sagesse ! I hear it." 

Very slowly she walked toward the door 
of the music-room, the joy in her heart too 
solemn to admit of haste. She would wait 
for the last " Levetoi! " And then she 
would push aside the curtain and enter, 
and crown him with her love and adoration 
forever. Ah, she had never dreamed, — 
never, never, that even love could teach him 
to sing like that ! 

The final high, sweet note died away and 
was lost in the accompaniment which swiftly 
ceased in a sustained chord. Madame flung 
the curtain aside, and entered with a noise- 
less step. So noiseless was it that it was 
not heard, and, as an animal retreats from a 

136 



DISCORDS 

hunter, Madame stepped back, and back, 
until she stood once more outside the room. 
Her hand still held the curtain so that she 
might see. This new thing was so terrible 
that there would have to be much seeing 
before she could believe. 

For Jeannot sat on the piano-stool looking 
up with eyes of love at the face of the girl 
who bent over him, — a girl about whom his 
arm was clasped, a girl whose small, pale 
face was alight with tenderness — Liselle. 
There is an old tradition that youth calls to 
youth. This flashed into Madame's dizzy 
brain as for one burning, horrible moment 
she looked. Liselle bent lower and they 
kissed each other, but neither spoke. The 
sunshine lay like a golden carpet upon the 
floor. The room was glorified, magnificent. 

Madame dropped the curtain. 



137 



A QUESTION OF 
MOTIVE 



DISCORDS 



& Question of jftlotfoe 




HE violinist, spas- 
modically exploited by 
fashionable " leaders " 
in London, and now 
the ostensible draw- 
ing-card at Lady 
Griggs's evening re- 
ception, had just come 
back to earth in a tri- 
umphant staccato finale. The last notes of 
the accompaniment were becoming merged 
in the ascending tumult of polite conversa- 
tion; — one of the trying but necessary 
interludes being past, people were hastily 
enjoying themselves, chattering volubly and, 
in a measure, against time, always with the 
imminent danger of another solo from the 
celebrity. At an evening musical, one may 
watch human nature with extraordinary 
ease. Whether a certain safety is felt under 
cover of what should be a general concen- 
tration of attention, or whether some uncon- 
scious effect of the music brings inherent 



141 



DISCORDS 

emotions to the surface, I know not. But if 
you look about you during a musical num- 
ber, you may constantly behold a very strange 
disarray of masks, and may be startled by 
the sight of utterly unprecedented passions 
painted upon familiar faces. 

A tall man with a curiously attractive 
smile and satirical eyes, stood in a door- 
way ; and, being something of a philosopher, 
with a taste for analysis, he cast his eyes 
occasionally over the mixed roomful of 
people and drew some interesting conclusions 
from very commonplace external evidence. 
And as he looked, — with an ironic inward 
laugh, — his vagrant glance encountered the 
carelessly poised blonde head of a girl on 
the other side of the room. He knew her, — 
had met her often during his two years of 
diplomatic life. They were sworn enemies, 
yet she attracted him to-night for the first 
time. Perhaps he recognized a certain sym- 
pathetic irony in the curl of her lips, and the 
quiet, meditative look in her gray eyes. At 
all events, he crossed the room with the 
deliberation of a man who always claims 
what he chooses, and leaned against the wall 
at her side. 

142 



DISCORDS 

" How do you do ? " he said, looking down. 
"I do not think I have seen you about 
lately." 

Alison Campbell looked up at him with a 
slightly mocking expression. 

" Some people * have eyes and see not,' " 
she quoted, lightly. "I should doubt your 
attentive search, Count Ralne. I have gone 
out as much as usual — certainly more than I 
like." 

" Ah, you find it — wearing — too ! I knew, 
somehow, that we agreed on that. 'Why 
have we not agreed on other things, I 
wonder." 

" I suppose the point of view of a dis- 
tinguished diplomat and an eccentric Ameri- 
can girl could hardly be expected to be 
identical." 

" They tell me you dislike diplomats. Is 
that true ? — All diplomats ? You must not 
take me as a type of my companions in 
crime. Some of them are quite nice." 

" I like the men of my own country best. 
Does that offend you ? " 

" No, it is delightful. You do not flatter. 
Pardon me if I say that many of your 
country-women, as well as many ladies of 

143 



DISCORDS 

this delightful but foggy land, are prone to 
flattery. They put a man a little too much 
at his ease with their — flattery. " 

"I suppose," said the girl, indifferently, 
"that they instinctively take the tone which 
they think will be most satisfactory. We 
are very adaptable, you know, with all — " 
She stopped herself before she said " classes 
of people.'' 

Her companion's eyes sparkled. 

"Mais contme vous etes delicieuse!" he 
murmured, but she pretended not to hear. 

" For example," he said, slightly changing 
his tactics, "the little lady opposite." 

His eyes indicated a slight, brown-eyed 
girl with a laughing glance and an appealing 
mouth. 

"Bessie Lucas," said Miss Campbell, 
quickly, "my best friend, — yes, and what of 
her?" 

" Your best friend ? Ah, well, I must say 
no more then. You are a loyal friend, are 
you not?" 

"What about Bessie?" she asked, insist- 
ently. 

"Only it is such as she of whom I spoke 
just now ; — who give us so much kind — flat- 

144 



DISCORDS 

tery. I like that word, by the way; it is 
courteous and non-committal, and it is so 
like charity, which covers, etc.!" 

She looked at him a moment, then she 
said very low, " Count Ranl6, that is what I 
meant when I said that I liked my own 
countrymen best. An American would not 
have said that." 

"If you have a fault," he remarked, 
suavely, "it is that of jumping to quick 
conclusions. I said nothing in any way 
uncomplimentary to your friend, — far from 
it. Indeed, I adore her — as you may possibly 
have heard. One always does hear things, 
I find, in time." 

" No," said Alison, quietly, " I have never 
heard that. I have heard that you have 
devoted yourself to her, that you have fol- 
lowed her about, have even boasted of your 
easy conquest, — but no more." 

"She is charming," he declared, diplo- 
matically. " Come, — I can say no more than 
that." 

"No," Alison said, rather bitterly. "Of 
course you can say no more than that, — you 
who have tried to spoil her pretty, child-like 
illusions of people and things, and, with 

145 



DISCORDS 

other men, have talked about her naivete, — of 
course, you can say no more." 

He opened his eyes a little wider. 

" You are not in earnest, surely ? " he ex- 
claimed, more seriously. "You are only 
jesting, of course ! " She said nothing, and 
he understood that she had been thoroughly 
in earnest. 

,f Really," he said, after a short pause, "it 
had never occurred to me that I was a 
modern Faust." 

Still she said nothing and he laughed a little. 

"Ah," he besought, in a peculiarly pleas- 
ant voice, and with a frank gaze, " do not be 
so hard on a little affaire; why, everyone 
has flirtations nowadays. They do no one 
a grain of harm, — there is thorough good 
feeling all through and afterward. What 
hurt can a few pretty speeches and half a 
dozen boxes of roses do Miss Lucas? Or 
even — " he hesitated—" say the little affaire 
went a bit farther, — she will only be the 
more lessoned in the art which is more 
important than anything else in life, — the 
art of love!" 

"I suppose," returned Alison, slowly, 
"that you will think me gauche, — stupid, — 

146 



DISCORDS 

bourgeois, in speaking to you like this. I 
am not sure I am not all three. But I love 
Bessie dearly, and I mean to save her from 
you yet. I'm telling you of my intention, 
you see, for I always fight fair." 

" I believe that," he said, with an inflection 
which was a compliment. 

11 Remember," she said, looking straight at 
him, " if I did not think more of her welfare 
than of dignity and good taste and even good 
breeding, I should order you out of my sight. 
And, Count Ranl6, you should always remain 
out of it, even though we met face to face." 

He felt distinctly uncomfortable, for he 
could not understand the look in her eyes. 

" I suppose," she went on, with apparently 
a vituperative pleasure in each fresh sting 
which she invented, " this interview would 
make a good chapter in your story of the 
little affaire at the club." 

" Miss Campbell ! " he said, flushing. And 
she had a curious desire to apologize ; only 
she would not. She tapped her left hand 
with her fan and kept her eyes in her lap. 

44 Count Ranl6, you are a man whose 
reputation is not of the kind to permit you to 
be attentive to any young girl." 

M7 



DISCORDS 

"Truly you are frank." 

" I am trying to be dispassionate and just. 
Your name was coupled with those of several 
women in Washington a few years ago — not 
to their advantage." 

11 Pardon me," he interrupted, dryly, " but 
a woman's name is never coupled with a 
man's, — in that sense, — to her advantage, 
Miss Campbell." 

"That is true, but against a certain girl 
whose name came up for discussion as to 
her eligibility for a girl's theatre club for 
Lent, and who was not admitted, there was 
no better charge brought than that last year 
Count Ranle used to be devoted to her. A 
certain hostess whom I know was called to 
account by a debutante's mother, because 
she had allowed the girl to sit next to Count 
Ranl6 at dinner. Shall I give you other 
instances to support my ideas ? " 

" Thank you," he answered, stiffly, " you 
have been peculiarly happy in your choice of 
the first two. I will not ask for any others." 

4 ■ It is all a matter of public opinion," the 
girl went on, steadily. "You see, however 
innocent and worthy you may know your- 
self to be, you are not considered, in the 

148 



DISCORDS 

world's eyes, a proper person to send Miss 
Lucas ' half a dozen boxes of roses,' nor to 
carry on a little affaire with her. Yet you 
have, I suppose, succeeded up to a point, — 
you have certainly taught her to lie in order 
to meet you, to . . . But it is all too revolting, 
too hateful. I cannot talk about it any more. 
Only I could not contain myself. I — I wish 
that music would stop. It is deafening, 
confusing.' ' She leaned back and fanned 
herself rapidly. Her face was very white. 

Ranl6 looked down at her with growing 
admiration. It was with a certain quiet 
determination that he bent over her and 
said: "You are a loyal friend, but you can- 
not keep people from following their bent. 
Has Miss Lucas told you her plans for to- 
morrow ? " 

"Yes— she lunches with Alice Miller, a 
mutual friend of ours." 

" Ah, yes — she told you that ? Truly, the 
diplomatic corps lost a man in her! That 
was not a case of the truth, the whole truth, 
and nothing but the truth, Miss Campbell. 
I myself had hoped to see your friend at 
luncheon by some fortunate chance. Yet I 
do not know Miss Miller." 

149 



DISCORDS 

She turned slowly, read his eyes, and saw 
that he spoke truth. 

" I will stop it," she said, hotly. " I will 
make her see, — I will tell her what you are." 

" And would she believe you ? She thinks 
I am a lover such as rode in tourneys for his 
lady in the Middle Ages. She would not 
take even your word against mine. ,, 

" No, — it is true," she said, very low. M I 
know it. She is weak, blinded, — and you 
have done it all. What a thing to be proud 
of, Count Ranle!" 

He saw how beautiful was the line of her 
cheek and throat. A bunch of violets pinned 
in her gown made the fair curves of her neck 
like marble. Her hair, as he bent over her, 
was a soft, dense mass of gold. 

" She is weak and blinded," he answered 
her, speaking under his breath, " a child, a 
flower, a butterfly. She cannot think, feel, 
love, understand, suffer. She has been, — 
she only could be, — a plaything at best, — a 
thing to delight in for a moment and then 
brush aside as one would brush a roseleaf. 
Can you imagine that such a woman could 
ever hold more than a passing charm for a 
man of my nature ? I could only love some 

150 



DISCORDS 

one as strong and as indomitable as myself, 
— some one as passionate, — as fervent in 
hate and in love, — the complement yet the 
fulfillment of myself. Ah, I could make 
such a woman understand the inner mean- 
ings of herself as she had never even dreamed 
she should understand. I could " 

He broke off, but the intensity of his look 
forced her to turn her head upward and 
meet his eyes. She shivered a little as she 
did so, but she did not glance away. 

" We have been enemies for so long! " he 
went on. " But enemies are better than mere 
casual acquaintances, indifferent to each 
other. To-night I came across to you 
because I felt that we belonged together, 
you and I, in this crowd of alien people/ ' 

"And Bessie?" she said, slowly, still 
looking up at him. "And the luncheon to- 
morrow ? " 

His eyes blazed suddenly, and she read in 
them a warm if short-lived passion. 

" Let me come to see you," he said, "let 
me come, — and tell you — oh, the numbers of 
things that I should like to tell you — and I 
will forget the luncheon — and everything 
else." 

151 



DISCORDS 

She rose and closed her fan slowly. There 
was a strange light in her eyes at the 
moment, he noticed. 

" I am going now," she said, formally. 
" Is not that Lady Griggs standing with her 
back to us ? I must say good-night.' ' 

" May I put you into your carriage ? " he 
asked, and accepting a certain faint motion 
of her head as consent, he bowed conven- 
tionally and moved away. 

When she went down the steps a few 
minutes later, she found him at her side. 
'When she entered her carriage his hand on 
hers gave her caressing rather than perfunc- 
tory assistance. And as she drew the door 
toward her, he caught it and seemed about 
to speak. 

"No," she said, faintly. "No, really, I 
must go. And about to-morrow, — if you 
will come at " 

«« Yes ? " he said, softly, " at " 

There was a brief silence, then suddenly 
she dragged the door toward her till it 
clicked, and cried out, almost with a sob in 
the words : " No — no — no ! You must not 
come ! I have changed my mind. I have 
no right to interfere in your affairs nor in 

152 



DISCORDS 

Bessie's. Forget what I have said, or at 
least forgive it, if you can. As you have said 
— everyone — everyone — must follow their 
own bent — they — Oh, tell him to drive on, 
please, — quickly, quickly, — good-night. " 

The carriage was moving, for the man had 
heard the order, but the look in her eyes 
made Ranle stretch out his hands toward 
her and cry in amazement, " Alison ! " Then 
she was gone, and there was only the click- 
clack of the horses' hoofs going off toward 
Prince's Gate. 

" Good God ! " he muttered, " I believe if 
that damned coachman hadn't driven off so 
quickly ' ' 

" Beg pardon, sir ? " said the man in livery 
on the steps. 

11 I did not speak." And he walked down 
the street in the direction of his Embassy. 

And, meanwhile, Alison Campbell was 
sobbing her heart out in the darkness of the 
carriage. 

"I should never have known," she whis- 
pered, " I could never have told whether or 
not my motive was true. If I had gone on 
and perhaps separated them, — it might have 
been for Bessie's sake, but it might — it 

153 



DISCORDS 

might — it would have been for my own. 
Dear Lord in Heaven, why have you let me 
love him as I do ? Love him, — love him, — 
love him, — so that nothing, — not the things 
I hear of him, not the things I know of him, 
not the things I say of him, — can take away 
the love/' 

But in the morning arrived some heavy- 
scented violets and a card : " I am coming 
at twelve o'clock — to help you save your 
friend. Remember, you are being purely 
philanthropic ; but — I am coming. Will you 
wear these, or return them, I wonder ? — 
Ranl6." 

She grew very white, but with a hesita- 
ting hand she thrust the violets into the 
bosom of her gown. 

It was just noon. 



154 



THE DAY OF 
JUDGMENT 



DISCORDS 

C&e Bap of 3trt>sment 




ENFOLD is a very 
small, sober village in 
the northern part of 
New England. It is 
the most respectable 
village in America, ac- 
cording to statistics, 
and they have a Free 
Public Library. 
Upon a certain day in a certain year, Pen- 
fold was interested in learning that the Bas- 
tick Farm had been sold to a strange lady 
from New York. She was a Miss Mary Rush, 
a spinster of seemingly definite age, and she 
had a full sufficiency of worldly goods. She 
was, however, absolutely unpretentious, as 
it turned out, in spite of her comfortable bank 
account, and seemed almost shy when her 
neighbours made kindly advances. With her 
was her small niece, her dead brother's child, 
she explained, — a pale little girl, twelve 
years old, named Phyllis. They were a cur- 
ious pair, — the quiet woman who, by virtue 

157 



DISCORDS 

of her staid bearing, seemed much older than 
her actual thirty-nine, and the fragile, pretty 
child who already partook slightly of her 
aunt's shy gravity and reticence. 

Penfold never grew to know Miss Rush 
very well. She was courteous to every one, 
and seemed grateful for kindness and friend- 
liness ; but she permitted no intimacy, and 
after a while Penfold settled itself to a 
simple acceptance of Miss Rush as she 
was, — stand-offishness and all. 

Ten years slipped softly and gravely by 
in the Bastick Farm. The crimson rambler 
had climbed higher up the old walls ; the 
garden was fuller and sweeter; the wood- 
shed had needed repairing more than once. 
Mary Rush's hair had begun to turn gray, 
and she had grown a little colder and more 
reserved. And Phyllis had become a tall, 
slight girl with yellow hair and colourless 
complexion — a beauty, people said, marking 
her delicacy and her strange air of distinc- 
tion. More than one Penfold youth adored 
her from afar, but in vain. Miss Rush 
disliked all men, and Phyllis herself seemed, 
for a young and beautiful girl, strangely 
indifferent to the opposite sex. 

158 



DISCORDS 

The two women lived in a world of books 
and flowers and unexciting household affairs. 
They were quite content with long morn- 
ings spent in consorting with Goldsmith and 
Bacon, and afternoons in caring for poppies 
and larkspur. Their sympathy seemed pro- 
found if undemonstrative, and neither would 
have admitted that she was not perfectly 
happy. 

And the Day of Judgment began to creep 
up below the horizon, gathering itself for 
that ' 'Awful Rose of Dawn " at the last. 

It was in autumn, warm-hued and tragic, 
that the shadows seemed to deepen as they 
sometimes do preparatory to the coming 
morning. Aunt and niece sat in the library 
having tea. That pretty feast seems fated, in 
paradox of its innocent festivity of intention, 
to accompany very many unnamed tragedies. 

"Aunt Mary," said Phyllis, quietly, " when 
I was walking to-day I met Dr. Caine." 

u Did you ? " was her aunt's sole response. 

u He — he walked with me to the village 
and back. He was rather disagreeable.' • 

"Matthew Caine is a good man," said 
Miss Rush, pouring hot water slowly into 
her cup. " What did he say ?'• 

159 



DISCORDS 

"He asked me to marry him. He even 
had the impertinence to persist after I had 
refused him. I thought it exceedingly vulgar 
ofhim. ,, 

" Why did you refuse him ? " 

1 'Why?" Phyllis opened her clear, gray 
eyes very wide. "Aunt Mary! How can 
you ask ? I detest him." 

" I should like you to marry him." 

" He said you 'favoured his suit.' Those 
were his detestable words. I did not be- 
lieve him at the time. I didn't know you 
even liked him. I didn't know you wanted 
me to marry any one. Aunt Mary, will you 
really tell me why you wish me to marry 
that man ? ' ' 

11 1 think, as I said, that he is a good man, 
who will make you a safe husband." 

" Please tell me what you mean by ■ safe.' 
I never did understand that expression. 
Does it mean that he would be safe or I ? " 

" Both, — principally you. It is a very good 
thing for a woman to be quite secure, quite 
well cared for and protected." 

" 'Why should I need protection ? " 

" All women need it ; you more than most. 
You inherit many weak and wayward ten- 

160 



DISCORDS 

dencies. Your father was a dissipated man. 
The less said of your mother the better.' ' 

Phyllis flushed. 

" I don't like to hear you speak so of my 
mother," she said gently. " I know you 
never approved of my father's marriage, 
but — she was my mother, and she is dead." 

Mary Rush laughed with peculiar and 
unwonted harshness. 

"That is true," she said, "she is dead. 
I repeat,— I wish you to marry Dr. Caine, 
Phyllis. I told him I would use my in- 
fluence." 

"I cannot marry him, Aunt Mary," said 
Phyllis, definitely. 

"It is very evident that I overestimated 
my influence when I offered to use it," re- 
marked Miss Rush, drily and rather cruelly. 
But neither said any more, though Phyllis 
was deeply hurt and puzzled. 

It was her aunt who broached the subject 
a week later. 

"I have told Dr. Caine that you will marry 
him," she said. They were in the garden, at 
the time, covering sensitive bulbs with straw 
and preparing for the approaching winter. 
Phyllis stopped her work to look at her. 

161 



DISCORDS 

" I am sorry you did that," she said, 
quietly and steadily, " because I shall not." 

Mary Rush controlled the sudden passion 
which leaped to her eyes and flushed her 
face. 

" You will forfeit my affection for the rest of 
your life," she said, her voice shaking a trifle. 
11 1 will never forget your lack of obedience, 
your lack of gratitude, your lack of docility, 
of womanliness — " she stopped, breathless, 
then went on grimly, " and I shall never 
forgive you." 

Phyllis grew very pale. 

"Aunt Mary!" she said; "is it that you 
don't love me any longer? You can't, of 
course, — to speak to me like that ! " 

Mary Rush's lips quivered, but she made 
no response. 

"The worst of it is," pursued the girl, 
brokenly, " I have no one else to talk to, — 
no one else at all. And so it has come to 
this, that I must tell you the truth, in spite 
of your hardness and unkindness toward me. 
Not only do I not love him, Aunt Mary, but 
I love someone else — very much." 

Miss Rush looked petrified. 

" Who ? " she asked, briefly. 

162 



DISCORDS 

"You will be angry if I tell you," whis- 
pered Phyllis, with drooping head. " It is 
someone whom I can love, but — never can 
marry. There is a — barrier — between us. 
But we can look across the barrier and love 
each other. Only that." 

Miss Rush still stared at her. 

" Who is it ? " she asked again. 

" He — has duties in his life," Phyllis con- 
tinued, growing very pale. " We can never 
be anything to each other. But I — I can 
keep myself free and faithful and true for his 
sake. That at least I can do." 

" Duties ! " broke in Miss Rush. " And I 
suppose you have no duties ! Tell me the 
name of this man who has let you love him, 
though he cannot marry you." 

"Hush!" said Phyllis, quickly. "You 
vulgarize it by speaking like that. We are 
not that kind of people, Aunt Mary. His 
love asks to come no nearer to me than mine 
to come to him. We ask — nothing. It is 
— Wilson Stone, Aunt Mary." 

"Wilson Stone!" repeated Miss Rush. 
" Let me be sure I know who you mean. He 
is the man who lives at the other end of 
Penfold — the man with the invalid wife ? " 

163 



DISCORDS 

Phyllis bowed her head. 

"He is a trusted lawyer, is he not?" 
went on Miss Rush, relentlessly. 

"Yes." 

"A gentleman ?" 

"Yes." 

"And an honourable man, evidently. A 
person with scruples and high ideals ! " She 
went to Phyllis and caught hold of her arms, 
her eyes full of fire. The girl should have 
seen the passion of love behind their anger, 
but she only shrank a little, fearing her aunt 
for the first time. 

"Now," said Mary Rush, panting, "you 
must marry Matthew Caine. This settles 
it ; nothing else can save you. I know these 
pure passions ; good God ! do I not ? I have 
seen many such in my life. And I tell you 
to marry Dr. Caine, and to thank God that 
such a way of safety and escape lies open to 
you." 

She pushed the girl from her and went 
into the house. 

The next day she announced to every one 
in the village that Phyllis was engaged to 
Dr. Caine, and that they were to be married 
before Christmas. 

164 



DISCORDS 

During the following month Bastick Farm 
was like a tomb where two unfriendly ghosts 
lived, moved, ate and slept, but never spoke. 
Phyllis had once for all said that she would 
never marry Dr. Caine. Mary Rush had 
said that she should if she had to drag 
her to the church herself. So matters 
rested. 

Then, one night, Phyllis spoke to her aunt 
for the first time in four weeks. 

"Aunt Mary," she said, "I am going 
away." 

Mary Rush looked suddenly twice her 
real age. She clasped either arm of her 
chair with rigid fingers and sat staring. 

" 1 am going away," repeated Phyllis. " I 
cannot bear it any longer. I have nothing 
to hold fast to. You are trying to drive me 
into this marriage. You know I would 
rather die and go to hell. You don't love 
me any more. I am going away." 

" Where do you intend to go ? " asked Miss 
Rush, speaking with difficulty, but in an 
icy voice. 

"I — don't know." Phyllis's voice was 
vague and miserable. " I believe I shall go 
to New York and try to get some sort of a 

165 



DISCORDS 

position. I think I could teach. I don't 
know, — oh, I don't know ! It kills me to go 
away, — alone, — I am afraid. But there is 
nothing else to do. I cannot bear this, — I 
cannot, — truly I cannot. And while Wil- 
son Stone is alive I will marry no other 
man." 

Mary Rush bent her head on her hands 
and began to rock herself to and fro, moan- 
ing. The dawn of the Day of Judgment was 
beginning to stain her sky with red. 

" Oh, my God ! Oh, my God ! " she mut- 
tured ; Phyllis heard the low words, — " it 
would have been so much better if Thou 
hadst never let her be born V 

Phyllis, shocked and frightened, slipped 
from the room. 

Mary Rush sat for an hour, a swaying, 
shivering figure in her armchair. And the 
fire went out, and the night-wind which 
in late autumn heralds and imitates mid- 
winter, howled around the house. Finally, 
she rose and with unsteady steps went to 
her desk ; then she began to write. Her 
face was very white, but it was strangely 
determined. The time had come for the 
truth, at last. She wrote as though her 

166 



DISCORDS 

hand were impelled by fate, and as she 
wrote her pen grew fluent and her thoughts 
eloquent. Her restraint of years was being 
washed away in this great flood of con- 
fession and explanation : 

" My Phyllis :— 

" If I have hurt you and broken your heart, 
as I believe I may have with my cruelty and 
hardness, it is only your right that you 
should know why I have seemed to turn 
from you in this hour of your pain and 
struggle. Ah, my dear, it has not been 
because I have not understood, but because 
I have understood too well. And, seeing 
the rocks ahead, I have tried with all my 
might to drive you away from them into a 
safe channel. In doing this I have hurt you, 
and I have done no good. So now I will 
speak, and you shall judge for yourself in 
these questions with which I have wrestled 
alone and in my own heart for twenty-three 
years. 

11 You have a very credulous nature, Phyl- 
lis : one which is satisfied with very few 
explanations. Your curiosity is almost null. 
This must be the reason why you have 
never insisted upon knowing more than the 

167 



DISCORDS 

barest facts concerning your parentage. I 
told you long ago that your father was my 
brother, that he married some one whom I 
disliked, and that they both died when you 
were two years old. It was a very pretty 
tale, and I had learned it carefully. I had 
also prepared various links in the chain, and 
some confirmatory evidence, in case the 
man you married should prove more curious 
than you. 

"The whole story was false, — from first 
to last, and in every smallest particular, 
absolutely and utterly untrue. My one ex- 
cuse for framing it is that it was for your 
sake. A cloud hangs very blackly over your 
birth, my dear, and I would not let it shadow 
your life if I could prevent it merely by 
taking a few lies upon my conscience. It 
can bear much, that conscience of mine, — it 
has never been very dainty. 

"My child, your mother was a woman 
much as you are, with just such power 
for passion and for suffering, and just such 
determination and indomitable loyalty. She 
was allowed to run as she would, and no 
one guided or guarded her. She fell in love 
with a man much older than herself, an 

168 



DISCORDS 

honourable man in his daily habit of life, but 
one who in this case loved neither wisely 
nor well. He induced her to leave her 
home and go away with him. He had a 
wife, and later he read in the papers that 
she had become unbalanced mentally and 
was in an institution for insanity. He never 
got over it. They, your father and your 
mother, were not happy together ; love is 
very rarely worth the price we are willing 
and eager to pay for it. Can you see now 
why I have feared for you, seeing how piti- 
lessly history was repeating itself in the 
conditions preparatory to the cataclysm ? 

" Phyllis, — you are not my niece, you are 
my daughter. Your father left me in New 
York the year you were born. He is dead, 
now. I would rather not tell you his name. 
You have never heard it, and it would mean 
nothing to you, but it would kill me to see it 
written here, in my own hand. There are 
the facts of your birth, at last, — naked, 
shameful and brutally unvarnished. You 
now have the truth, and when you have 
read it, I think you will perhaps begin to 
understand me a little. Every hour of my 
life, minute by minute, I have tried to ex- 

169 



DISCORDS 

piate my sin against you. I do not care 
in the least for my crime against social con- 
ditions or against the church, against man or 
against God. May He forgive me for saying 
it ! But my suffering lies in this : that, 
through my wrong, you were born onto the 
earth nameless, — a creature with no place in 
the world, with a stigma attached to you. 
I have done my best to eradicate the stigma 
and the shame for you. I have lied and 
schemed and lost my own soul that yours 
might be safely sheltered. I have guarded 
you, I have brought you up in honour and 
comfort and peace, respected by every one, 
suspected by no one. This is true, is it not, 
Phyllis ? And I have said to myself, ■ She 
will marry a good man, and little children 
will grow up about her, and she will be safe 
from the world and its sin.' 

" I am your mother, Phyllis, and with that 
right I speak to you. Learn through me, 
my dear. Put this love out of your life. 
You can do it, though it will hurt. Marry 
the man who honours you and will make you 
his wife in all men's eyes. It is your one 
hope for a respected, tranquil life. I wish 
it ; I command it. 

170 



DISCORDS 

" Though I love you more than my hope 
of salvation, Phyllis, I do not ask you to 
love me in return. I only ask you to pause 
and to consider and to — obey. I know — I 
know — I know, 

" Your mother. 

" Mary Rush." 

She placed the letter in an envelope and 
-went slowly upstairs. A lamp still burned 
in Phyllis's room. She paused outside the 
door and said in a shaking voice : 

" Phyllis, — I have left something — here, — 
on the hall table — for you to read. I will 
see you in the morning." 

Then she went away to her own room and 
sank upon the bed, dressed as she was, too 
weary to move a finger, too weary to cry, 
and far, far too weary to sleep. 

The night wore away, and morning came, 
and with it the sounds that proclaim the 
commencement of the every-day household 
machinery. Voices in the kitchen region 
exchanged salutations. Milk poured from 
can to can. Wire doors slammed, and the 
sound of the coffee-grinder mingled with a 
cheerful Irish voice humming below. Mary 
Rush lay stiff and wide-eyed on the bed, 

171 



DISCORDS 

wondering how it was that things could go on, 
— and on, — and on, — while mental tragedies 
were violently enacted, and life after life 
reached its crisis and was settled for good 
or ill. 

She rose with grim determination at her 
regular hour, and went down to breakfast. 
Phyllis was not yet in the room. She seated 
herself at the table and began to pour out a 
cup of coffee with a steady hand. Then, sud- 
denly, she saw an envelope lying on her plate. 
It was addressed in Phyllis's hand, it was 
duly stamped, and it was postmarked Pen- 
fold. 

" That was the only letter, ma'am, that 
the man brought, " said the maid. 

Miss Rush read the superscription several 
times before she had the courage to open it. 
She had spilled some hot coffee on her 
hand, but felt no burn. The maid went to 
one of the windows and fastened back a 
blind which was banging in the wind. How 
fresh and crisp the air was — how golden- 
yellow the sun ! A dry vine rattled in 
the sudden gusts, and out on the road the 
clouds of dust were brightened to silver. 

At last she opened the letter. 

172 



DISCORDS 

" Penfold Station. 
" 11.30 p. m. 
"Dear Aunt Mary : — 

" When I left you an hour ago I went out 
into the dark. I did not know where I was 
going, — I only knew that I must go. I was 
very unhappy and absolutely at sea. There 
was nowhere to go, and no one to turn to — 
except Wilson. He found me. I think I 
should have killed myself if he had not, 
but he did, — and then everything was made 
right. And we have given up everything, he 
and I, and are going away together to some 
city where we will be quite lost in the rush 
of people. I know we are very wicked, but 
what can we do ? What can we do ? If you 
had only seemed to love me a little, but I 
have felt lately that I was only a burden 
which you hated, and I could not do as you 
wished ; I could not marry Dr. Caine. Please 
try to forget me and the disgrace I have brought 
to you. I suppose even shame may be for- 
gotten in time. Forgive me — forgive me ! 
But I was so unhappy, — and I love him so ! 

" Phyllis Rush." 

Mary Rush went upstairs with a steady 
step and entered the deserted room. The 

173 



DISCORDS 

lamp had burned out and the air was close 
and murky. She looked about her without a 
change of expression; then came out and 
shut the door. Then she picked up her un- 
read confession from the table, and tore 
it into tiny pieces, and let each white scrap 
blow away out of the hall window, 

" ' I suppose even shame may be forgotten 
in time/ n she quoted, with that calm which 
is born after the final blow has been dealt, 
and the last test given emotional strength. 
11 Forgotten ! Forgotten ! If I were a weak 
woman I should take refuge in the great 
Forgetfulness ! " She closed her eyes for 
a second, luxuriating in the thought. " But 
I have never been a weak woman, — never a 
coward, whatever else I may have been. My 
reckoning has come, and I will cheat neither 
God nor the Devil. It is hell-fire hence- 
forth, — which is quite as it should be. After 
the Day of Judgment there comes no oblivion 
through the rest of time and eternity." 



174 



SHADOWS 



DISCO RDS 




g>l)abotos 





ORDON was watching 
the clock with strange 
impatience. The mo- 
tion of those hesitating 
hands lessened mo- 
mentarily the distance 
between him and one 
of the great tragedies 
of his life. Yet he hun- 
gered for the silver chime of eight which 
should tell him that his hour was at hand. 

For years he had chosen the better part — 
or so he called it — of inaction in the world's 
busy doings. He had read and studied ; he 
valued most things justly, appreciated his 
own powers and limitations accurately, and 
made use of them wisely. Had the analyti- 
cal observer been asked to cite for demon- 
stration a mind perfectly balanced and 
excellently adjusted, he could hardly have 
failed to at least remember that of Francis 
Gordon. 
This judicial poise and clarity of thought 

177 



DISCORDS 

were somewhat remarkable when one 
considered that he had suffered from a 
great and embittering injustice twenty years 
before, — an injustice which had seriously 
affected his reputation, and might well have 
poisoned his entire mind and nature. A 
man had defrauded him of his good name 
for honour and gentlemanliness, and that is 
a theft for which there are few legal or public 
means of satisfaction. The man who had 
so wronged him was named Louis Ellis, and 
he had married the girl Gordon loved. They 
had been friends as boys and young men, 
and Gordon had remained loyal to his chum, 
steadfastly putting his own disappointment 
aside. But Ellis had always been jealous 
of his more brilliant friend, and had treated 
him with a certain disguised hostility which 
was characteristic of the man. One night in 
Ellis's own house, the host had accused his 
guest of cheating at cards. 

Others at the table supported the assertion, 
and Gordon found himself in a moment the 
chief figure in a rather unpleasant scandal. 
The matter was ostensibly "hushed up," 
but, like all such affairs, was soon known to 
every man and woman in New York, and, in 

178 



DISCORDS 

spite of the large majority of people who still 
believed in him, Frank Gordon was hence- 
forward a marked man. He chose not to put 
his friends' confidence to the test, and saying 
carelessly that "he could afford to ignore 
such matters/ ' he had dropped more and 
more out of the world, and devoted himself 
exclusively to his books and a dilletante 
form of journalism which amused him. 

It was long since he had asked anyone to 
dinner in his rooms ; it was twenty years 
since he had spoken to Louis Ellis. Now, 
in the words of his man, he was " entertain- 
ing again," and his guest was Ellis, — his 
worst enemy, — the man whose hand he had 
sworn never to touch again. He had written 
him a brief note asking him to put bygones 
by and dine with him, and Ellis had accepted 
with the nervous effusiveness of one who 
feels himself in the wrong. 

The clock struck eight. 

Gordon heard a hansom stop at the door 
downstairs. He rose and walked slowly up 
and down the room once. As he passed the 
long mirror he noticed his spare well-dressed 
figure as though it were another man's. He 
did not see the tense whiteness of his lips, 

179 



DISCORDS 

nor the curious look in his eyes which would 
have interested an alienist. 

" Mr. Ellis, sir." 

Gordon held out his hand, with a sense 
that another man was responsible for the 
action. Ellis was a heavy man, with a sallow 
skin and pale eyes. A short, stiff mustache 
covered his upper lip, and his lower was 
weak and full. Gordon was no taller but, 
by virtue of his slightness and his nice pro- 
portion, gave the impression of several inches 
advantage. 

"Awfully good in you," Ellis stammered, 
plunging fatally into the one impossible tone 
and manner. 

Gordon's face did not harden, only because 
it was already adamantine. He merely 
bowed and answered, "It's a good while 
since we've met, isn't it ? That's the best 
chair, I think. Will you have anything to 
drink before dinner ? " 

Dinner was immediately announced. The 
two men sat alone at a large and elaborately 
appointed table, and talked commonplaces 
over the expanse of candle-lit white and 
silver. Gordon was courtesy itself, and the 
wine was insidious, yet Ellis was ill at ease. 

1 80 



DISCORDS 

Truth to tell he could not imagine why Gor- 
don had asked him to dinner. He had come 
from a certain curious sense of cowardice. 
He feared his enemy and weakly wished to 
propitiate him by acquiescence. Now, as 
he sat opposite him, he felt profoundly sorry 
that he had come. A hideous constraint was 
upon him, and the past like a skull and cross- 
bones seemed to grin and rattle between 
them. 

The room was full of shadows, and the 
wavering candle flames made them dance 
upon the walls and take strange shapes. 
They sat on and on, and in spite of the rare 
cigar and the marvellous liqueurs Ellis still 
cringed and paled with a sense of unrest 
and fear. Finally he rose, with an unsteady 
remark as to the lateness of the hour. 

" It would be a pity to go, though, before 
the storm lifts," protested Gordon. " Such 
a downpour cannot last long." 

Ellis became conscious for the first time 
of the roar of wind and rain outside. Strange 
to say, he had not noticed it — until Gordon 
spoke ; but, now that he heard, it seemed to 
shut out past and future. 

" Still, I must go," he said, nervously. 

181 



DISCORDS 

Gordon's eyes had narrowed slightly, the 
smoke curling over his head took fantastic 
shapes. The butler had left the room some 
time since. Was it the wine, or the thunder 
of the storm that gave to Ellis's brain 
that elusion of expectancy, of dread, of 
horror ? 

" If you go now," said his host, slowly, " I 
shall think that you still cherish the past, — 
the past which makes you ill at ease with 
me, — the past with its unseemly elements of 
hate and bitterness and — injustice. " 

Ellis shrank from the last word. Either 
the wine had loosened his conventional 
reserve, or the words were torn from him 
by a culmination of remorse ; at all events 
he broke out rather hoarsely, — 

" Before God, Gordon, — I have regretted 
that — injustice.' ' 

Gordon did not look at him, but the hand 
holding his cigar moved suddenly, so that 
the ash was shivered into the air. 

" I would have set it straight — later on — 
if I could — " pursued Ellis, brokenly, roughly, 
his eyes very blood-shot, his mouth tremu- 
lous. " But there seemed no way. I should 
have had to put myself in the wrong. And 

182 



DISCORDS 

there seemed — no way. And there was my 
wife " 

Then Gordon looked at him. 

" Ah, yes," he said, " there was your wife. 
Your wife is dead, is she not ? " 

" She died ten years ago," answered Ellis, 
indistinctly. He sank into a chair. 

"Yes, — I heard that. At the time, I 
thought of writing you. Then, on second 
thought, I decided I would not. The peculiar 
circumstances, you know — " He laughed 
and threw his cigar away. 

" It is strange," he remarked, " how 
clearly things come back. I seem to see 
those old episodes so vividly. That night, 
for instance, in your house ; your wife's 
face, at dinner. It was rather pale, Ellis. I 
wonder how it happened that she was so 
often pale." 

" I was a brute to her," muttered Ellis. 
" I was a fool and jealous." 

"You — dared to be jealous of her? But 
so are we made, I suppose, — we men ! 
Then I remember the latter part of the same 
evening — so distinctly. That little slip of 
yours that only I saw, and did not speak 
of, — for her sake. You knew that I saw, 

183 



DISCORDS 

though, Ellis, — you perhaps knew the cause 
of my silence. I remember the green, pale 
look that came over your face, and then, — 
it was just afterward, — you accused me. 
A pretty trick ! You were rather masterly, 
too, in the way you got those drunken boys 
to back you up. They owed you money, I 
believe. Sometimes I have remembered it 
all with positive admiration during these 
twenty years." 

Ellis turned his face toward him. He 
was very white and shaking; his heavy lips 
hung weakly open ; his eyes were full of fear. 

" For God's sake, Gordon," he said, " don't 
go over it — I've expiated, — great God, have 
I not ! My wife knew. I don't know how, 
but she did know, instinctively, and I read 
hate in her eyes whenever I looked there, 
I have been haunted by the terror of you 
and of myself for twenty years." He moaned 
the words — " For twenty years ! " 

" * If blood be the price of Admiralty, 
Lord God, we ha* paid in full,' " 

murmured Gordon, musingly. "I am glad 
you have enough conscience left, Ellis, to 
appreciate a simple punishment. I feared, 
that like the Inquisitors, I should have to 

184 



DISCORDS 

prepare particular methods for a particular 
case." 

Ellis struggled up from his chair, and 
stood frozen, with wide and terrified gaze. 
Their eyes met. " Gordon !" he gasped, 
"you cannot kill me?" The words were a 
question. "You cannot — for mere revenge — 
a bit of a trick — at cards — twenty years 
ago!" 

"Twenty years ago!" repeated Gordon, 
quietly. He rose and walked forward so 
that he stood between Ellis and the door. 

" For twenty years," he said, " I have 
thought this thing over. I have had to con- 
sider it, not as to magnitude but as to char- 
acter. It was a fraud — and a fraud is a fact, 
whether big or little. It was also an outrage. 
I have divided life into facts and shadows. 
The shadows are sentiment, — forgetfulness, 
— joy, — forgiveness. The facts are love and 
hate, honour and shame, birth, marriage and 
death. We are not dealing with shadows, 
but with facts to-night, Ellis. You married 
the girl I loved; you treated her like a brute, 
though she was the truest and sweetest soul 
that ever made a great mistake, and paid for 
it with self-sacrifice till she died. For that 

185 



DISCORDS 

you deserve to die. You cheated your friends 
and guests in a game of cards — a small thing, 
but an indication. And because you hated 
me, and wished to save yourself, and be- 
cause you knew that my worship of your 
wife would ensure my silence, you accused 
me of your own fraud, — and for that you 
deserve to die." 

Gordon's voice had grown a little hoarse 
and choked ; his eyes were terrible ; — his 
whole figure a menace. 

"You have poisoned my life, my brain, 
and my heart/ ' he burst out, stridently. 
"You have made me a cynic — a scoffer — an 
outcast. And for that " 

He drew out a small revolver and pointed 
it between Ellis's strained eyes. 

" It is not a question of the importance of 
things,' ' he continued, suddenly quieting his 
voice. " It is with facts. Values and propor- 
tions and all those phrases are but shadows 
at best. It is the facts of dishonour and 
hate and revenge — " He cocked the revol- 
ver and with his finger upon the trigger 
he paused and smiled. 

" Your wife loved me," he said, slowly. 
And after waiting a moment to catch the look 

186 



DISCORDS 

of supreme pain in the man's half-stupefied 
eyes, he fired. 

When the officers found him, he was 
turning the pages of a beautiful edition of 
Omar Khayyam. He looked at his visitors 
with surprise and some amusement. 

"Arrested — I?" he said; "because of — 
that?" His eyes followed the police- 
captain's to Ellis's body which lay on the 
rug beside the dining room table. In falling, 
the man had caught the white cloth in his 
convulsive grasp, and it was pulled half off 
the table ; the glasses were overturned, and 
a long, narrow stain of claret showed in the 
candle-light like blood. 

u But you do not understand," said Gor- 
don, quietly. " We were friends as boys, 
but something came between us, — one of 
the inevitable shadows of life." He smiled. 
" We shall be friends again now that this 
is all over. It has only been a dream — a 
shadow. He does not bear malice, I am 
sure. You will see, it will all come right 
some day." He laughed, childishly, and 
turned the pages of the book which he still 
held in his hand. 

i8 7 



DISCORDS 

"This is an ambulance case, boys," said 
the officer, bluntly. But Gordon paid no 
heed. He was reading aloud, in the low, 
clear voice of the student : 

11 ' We are no other than a moving row 

Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go 
Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held 
At Midnight by the Master of the Show.' " 



1 88 



PIERRE OF THE 
WOODS 



DISCORDS 

$tero of t|>e Wtrit>% 




' NE day Pierre du Bois 
gave up " guiding 1 ' and 
married. He was a loss 
: to the noble galaxy of 
guides who went out 
from Kineo every year, 
for he was a rarely 
expert woodsman and 
waterman, and had an 
instinct in regard to the habits and haunts of 
wild things, which he himself ascribed to a 
remote strain of Indian blood mingling with 
his French-Canadian and American heri- 
tages. But he was one who would prefer 
independence and privacy for the first years 
of his married life, so he took a position 
as assistant in the one shop that the small 
sporting colony boasted, commonly known 
as " The Store." 

" The Store " was the outfitting establish- 
ment for all campers who had, through 
neglect or ignorance, brought an insufficient 
supply of blankets, cartridges, flies, reels, 

191 



DISCORDS 

woolen socks or canned corned-beef. Its 
resources covered a variegated ground and 
ran from six-by-six canvas tents to those 
out-of-date, paper-backed novels, whose 
soiled covers were ornamented by large- 
eyed ladies in their death-throes, or super- 
lative sunrises on preposterous peaks. It 
was a dingy, unsavoury spot — The Store — 
but it formed a sort of meeting-ground for 
the men between trips, in the season, and 
for them took the place of a club. Seldom 
was The Store deserted, and rarely was it 
possible to enter it without hearing the chat 
of the lumber-camps or the trappers, the 
desultory yet always vitally real talk of out- 
of-door men. 

The life in The Store was a confining 
one to Pierre du Bois. He did not grow 
rich, and he hated the shelves and boxes, 
the inner room with its groceries and its 
weighing-machine, the many flies, and the 
smell of rubber blankets hanging up on 
exhibition. Odd, he sometimes thought, 
that that very smell of rubber was the 
pleasantest thing in life on a wet night in 
the woods when the fire was almost out, 
and a man was rolled in his blanket and 

192 



DISCORDS 

poncho seeking sleep under an insufficient 
tent-fly! Often he longed for the wood- 
trail, for the " quick- water," where a 
steady hand was needed, — even for the 
lumber-camp, full of hardship though it 
was. 

His old pals nodded to him when they 
came in to gossip round The Store's reeking 
stove on autumn evenings. 

" Great trapping up to Allegash, ,, Ned 
Shell would say, in his drawling voice. Ned 
was a wiry, silent man, with a pleasant and 
ruddy face, and the sort of blue eyes that 
people trust. " Goin' to be a good winter. 
'You goin' to strike the trail, Peer ? " 

" No ! " Pierre would grunt, angrily. 
" Wife,— baby. How I strike the trail?" 

Pierre only dimly remembered his French- 
Canadian parents, but in moments of emo- 
tion his accent leaped into his speech and 
blurred the English words. 

" Oh, well," long, good-humoured Hal 
Ferris would say, easily, "Joe, — he's mar- 
ried, but he goes all right." 

11 Say, Peer," would finally urge Nick, the 
Indian, " come out with Hawkins* gang this 
winter. It's a great lumber year." 

193 



DISCORDS 

Nick and Pierre had always been good 
friends. 

" No ! 'tell you no ! M Pierre's shout would 
be involuntarily savage, and he would turn 
as though to leave them. But, invariably, a 
word, telling of the sport he loved, of the 
wild lore dearer to him than life, would hold 
his ears, and he would listen eagerly to 
some unimpassioned recital of the luck 
Ned Shell had had " up to Allegash," or of a 
brief unpleasantness between Nick and two 
"lucifies," the skin of which ungracious 
combatants Nick had just sent down to the 
taxidermist in Greenville. 

Pierre would sometimes stay in The Store 
until very late, listening to this sort of talk, 
and finally, on his return to his cottage, his 
wife would detect a dullness in his eyes and 
a tonelessness in his voice. 

She was a pretty, petulant woman, — was 
Lucy du Bois. She had been a belle, and 
still sported a pink rose in her hat on Sun- 
days, and her walk had not lost its jaunti- 
ness. She adored Pierre and was proud of 
him, but sometimes, after the manner of her 
kind, she reproached him with their poverty. 
" She had had more home to her father's," 

194 



DISCORDS 

she told him, fretfully. " There was little 
enough for them, — and then, the child and 
all — Oh, why had she ever been the great, 
gawky fool as to marry a man as couldn't 
support her! " 

Pierre listened apathetically to her com- 
plaints, but the day came when it seemed to 
him that he could bear neither them nor 
their cause any longer. That was the day, 
too, when the man who kept The Store told 
him that he was wanted there no longer. 
He had a new and better assistant coming 
from Greenville, — " a man as could figure 
an' earn his wages.' ' 

Pierre and he had words, and in a fury the 
younger man struck the older, so that he lay 
prone like one dead. And then Pierre fled 
frantically away as though he were trying 
to escape from himself. He told his wife 
what had happened ; his voice was choked, 
but he told his story with brutal simplicity. 
She stared at him shocked, white and terri- 
fied, and then burst out into such a wild 
tirade of vituperation and horror that he 
shivered under its fury. Then she took the 
child and rushed out of the house, saying 
that she would never return. And the door 

195 



DISCORDS 

banged after her, did not quite latch, and 
went on banging in the wind. 

Then Pierre sat down and thought. Prob- 
ably the man was dead ; he was an old man, 
Pierre had struck hard, and the fall had been 
heavy. At the moment he did not in the 
least care, and as a matter of fact his last 
chance of penitence had been snuffed out 
when the door had slammed behind his 
wife and child. Henceforth, he realized, he 
was alone, and could only depend on him- 
self. He was a criminal whose arrest would 
probably mean hanging, though in Maine 
those things are sometimes adjusted with 
certain concessions on the part of the law. 

Suddenly, in the midst of the dreary reflec- 
tions with which his brain was spinning and 
wheeling in his hot head, he thought of the 
woods, — his old beloved woods. They would 
shield him and hide him, and with his gun 
and rod he could keep life in him when he 
could not smuggle provisions into his wilder- 
ness. 

The curious, stinging, dancing sensation 
inside his head cleared and lightened. The 
silent little kitchen with its big range, half- 
cold now, and its aggressively ticking clock, 

196 



DISCORDS 

became the scene of his preparations, brief 
though complete. He escaped that night be- 
fore the alarm was given, and disappeared 
into the friendly forest, going whither no 
man knew. No message, no sign of him 
remained ; he had faded into the underbrush 
and the interlacing trees. He swamped no 
trail by which to be traced. He vanished 
utterly, and was lost. 

Pierre du Bois, — Pierre of the Woods, 
indeed. 

It was five years later that Lucy du Bois 
sat in her father's kitchen one August even- 
ing and talked to Dick McLinn, the game- 
warden. He was a handsome, dashing 
fellow, big and blond, and his gray-blue 
eyes were cool and fearless. He eyed her 
pretty figure with distinct admiration in his 
gaze, for Lucy was looking her best, and 
had dared to tie a sky-blue ribbon in her 
dark curly hair. Her face had perceptibly 
hardened during the years since her hus- 
band's disappearance, but it was still very 
young, and very freshly coloured, and she 
had her old jaunty, coquettish manner in 
speaking. 

197 



DISCORDS 

" Don't you think you like me — just a 
little ?" ventured Dick, at once bashful and 
bold. " Don't you suppose as I've a chance, 
Lucy?" 

" Chance, Dick McLinn ? With Peer off 
there alive and well ? " 

" Damn him ! " said Dick McLinn, between 
his teeth. " I keep forgettin' you've a hus- 
band, Lucy. Couldn't you forget it, too?" 

" No," said Lucy. " Not but what I'd like 
well enough to forget it! Think of the 
shame he's brought on me! Him a mur- 
derer ! " Her eyes filled with angry tears, and 
her face grew scarlet. " I'd like well enough 
to forget him altogether," she said again. 

"Would you, now, Lucy?" asked Dick, 
leaning nearer, and taking her hand. "And 
if he was dead, Lucy, would you take up 
with me, do you think ? " 

"Oh, p'raps so, — I guess so," said Lucy, 
with wary indifference and uncertainty. But 
she was weak and Dick was insistent, and 
before he left that night she had let him kiss 
her several times, and she had repeated with 
energy her wish that she might forget Pierre 
du Bois and his shameful deeds. Thereupon 
Dick had again muttered, "Damn him \ " 

1 98 



DISCORDS 

It was that night that Dick had a talk with 
old Warrington, the warden whose word was 
law with all lesser men. The talk was con- 
cerning Pierre du Bois. He was at present 
believed to be in that region known as Des- 
olation, and had been seen at a distance by 
two trappers. Not long before he had killed 
a man who came too near his camp, and it 
was clear that he was a dangerous charac- 
ter. For public safety and legal satisfaction 
his freedom must come to an end. Others 
had tried to capture him alive, — well and 
good. Stronger measures must now be made 
use of. He must be captured ; that was the 
wish of the authorities, with no qualifying 
statements. Dick expressed an interest in 
the wishes of the authorities, which made 
the older man smile sardonically. 

" Think you want a try at some big game 
trapping, eh, young 'un ? " he remarked. 

"Yes; think I do. You say he must be 
captured. Does that mean alive or dead?" 

"Alive or dead/' answered the old war- 
den, and after that opened his lips to add 
something ; but he thought better of it, and 
shut them with another smile rather more 
grim than the first. 

199 



DISCORDS 

" I understand, sir," said Dick McLinn. 

For he had read in that smile the after- 
thought which Warrington had suppressed : 
" Alive or dead — preferably dead." 

Dick McLinn had made up his mind to 
bring Pierre of the Woods to justice. He 
rarely attempted what he could not accom- 
plish, and now his entire will, energy and 
desire were all brought to bear upon this 
one ultimate result. He left next morning 
at daybreak, alone. No one knew where he 
was going, except Warrington. He simply 
disappeared, as Pierre himself had dis- 
appeared five years before. 

Desolation is one of the wildernesses of 
the world. It is not a haunt of campers-out; 
even the most violent fishermen are rarely 
familiar with it. The woodsmen know it, 
but it is a bit off the trail, and not in any 
sense a frequented region. It is a place 
where a man must swamp his way to avoid 
subsequent bewilderment, — a place where a 
man would rather go with a companion than 
alone. Game is easily seen and easily taken 
in Desolation, for man is not known and 
therefore not feared. The big crane stands 
motionless in the water; the "musk-rat" 

200 



DISCORDS 

paddles about with soft stroke and loud 
intermittent splash; the deer comes down 
daintily, big-eared and big-eyed, waving the 
white plume of his tail, and placing each 
fine, small hoof with a precision which is 
grace, and drinks his fill ; all are unmolested. 
The big caribou passes through with leis- 
urely step; the moose, lord of all, reigns 
there in undisputed sway. The wild things 
know it is their vantage-ground, and it is 
filled with them. 

Smoke seldom rises from Desolation. The 
high-swinging birds are rarely lured down 
to camp-fires by the smell of the toothsome 
food affected by humans. But one thread of 
purple smoke was rising one night from a 
small clearing in the very heart of the Deso- 
lation woods. A man was cooking a piece 
of venison above the blaze ; a man dingily 
and raggedly dressed but healthily browned, 
and with the clear gaze and alert frame of 
the woodsman, — Pierre of the Woods, at 
home in his forest hiding-place, — alone. 

At a rather long stone's throw away from 
him another man was also making his evening 
meal. The two, as was noticed by an ob- 
servant hawk far above, finished eating at 

201 



DISCORDS 

about the same time, and then the second 
man began to move slowly and carefully 
toward Pierre's camp. He walked very 
softly, very lightly, with a trained step, and 
he had gotten quite close to his desired goal 
when he started a deer in a runway. The 
shrill whistle penetrated the thickets, and 
Pierre, preparing for the night, stopped short, 
wondering what sudden scent had startled 
the animal. It was some distance off, but 
suddenly the sound came again, close at 
hand; — the deer was running toward him, 
therefore away from something else. The 
bounding step and reiterated whistle passed 
in the shrubbery, and Pierre knew that some 
human being was near him. He extinguished 
the remains of his camp-fire, and taking up 
his rifle, he sat down at the door of his cabin 
to wait. 

Well he knew that no man approached 
him in a friendly spirit. He was an outlaw, 
with a price upon his body. He sat motion- 
less, hardly breathing, looking into the dark- 
ness. 

It was intensely, awfully still. Who has 
experienced the tense and muffled silence of 
the woods without a shudder of almost 

202 



DISCORDS 

terror ? Pierre, since his return to his wild 
life, had been strangely sensitive to the 
moods of the forest. To-night his heart 
was filled with a splendid excitement and 
exaltation, an ecstasy of presentiment. Some 
climax was coming to the strange chapters 
of events which had made up his life. He 
looked back upon the past with interest, but 
no remorse. He regretted nothing, repented 
him of nothing. He could almost have 
thanked that old store-keeper, five years 
back in his life, since it was through him 
that he had come back to his woods. When 
he thought of eternity it was with no fear, — 
only an abounding curiosity. To-night, for 
some reason, he felt intimately, oddly near 
to eternity. He laughed silently in the dark 
as he gripped his rifle and waited. 

For a long time the dreary call of a far 
away watchful owl was the only point of 
sound upon the great blank of stillness. At 
last it came, that for which Pierre waited, — 
the faint click of a broken twig. Only an 
animal can avoid those dry twigs that lie 
along the wood-trails, — blessed protection to 
the fugitive, whether man or beast. A faint 
glimmer of starlight showed between the 

203 



DISCORDS 

dense branches, enough to disclose the cabin, 
Pierre knew. He waited. 

Then, a shadow on yet deeper shadows, 
a man came out into the clearing. The 
camp-fire was quite out and its place invisi- 
ble, and very faintly came the jar of his foot 
upon a log. Then there was a long silence. 
Then, right before the cabin, stood the man's 
figure. 

Pierre moved his arm with the rifle 
stealthily upward, but some elusive gleam 
of starlight glinted on the barrel. With 
an exclamation, the man sprang back ; both 
fired at the same instant. 

Dick's shot told; Pierre's sank harmlessly 
into a tree-trunk beyond the clearing. Tar- 
get practice in the dark is unsatisfactory, 
even at short range. 

"Who are you, — damn you?" asked Pierre, 
leaning choking on his arm. He had fallen 
over sideways when Dick fired. 

11 McLinn, — warden," was the brief reply. 
Dick was a bit frightened. He found the 
experience unpleasant, and his nerves had 
been strained for several days. " Give me 
that gun." 

He bent down to disarm the other ; Pierre 

204 



DISCORDS 

fired straight up, as near his heart as he 
could. As it happened, his hand was un- 
steady and the bullet barely grazed the 
warden's arm, but he sprang back and 
clapped his hand to the wound. 

" Damn you l" choked Pierre, " and I only 
one bullet lef ! Never mind ! — I give you 
one hard job ; — you got carry me dead back 
to Kineo. ,, 

The last bullet went into his side, and 
why death was not instantaneous no doctor 
could subsequently understand. But, as a 
matter of fact, he lived for several awful days 
with those two murderous bullets in his 
body, and Dick McLinn brought him back, 
dragging and carrying him, paddling the 
overloaded canoe alone, giving him water 
occasionally, — food he would not touch, — 
and listening to his oaths. Finally he died, 
with two separate and definite curses : one 
upon Dick, and the other upon that last bul- 
let of his which had failed him, unmercifully 
leaving him to prolonged agony. 

Dick's flesh crept sometimes on looking 
back upon that ghastly trip ; the last two 
days and nights with the dead man always 
near were particularly terrifying. Though 

205 



DISCORDS 

he was not a nervous man, he shook as 
though with an ague when the trip was at 
an end, and his face was hardly recognizable. 

Dick McLinn did carry his captive dead 
back to Kineo, even as the wounded man 
had vowed he should. He made the hard 
trip in marvellously quick time, and brought 
in the body of the famous outlaw to the 
authorities. 

Pierre lay on the landing when his wife 
and child came out of The Store. Dick, 
trying to be jaunty, but with a very white 
face, went up to the woman. 

" It's all right," he said, with a nervous 
and ghastly sort of brutality, " Peer's ac- 
count's all closed. I — I've brought him 
back." 

" Brought him back ? " she cried, her eyes 
wide and strange. She had a little bright- 
hued shawl around her shoulders, and sud- 
denly she flung it off as though the weight 
of it were too much. "Brought him. . . . 
Oh, my God! . . . Where?" 

"I — he — I've brought him back," he 
blurted, " but he ain't— he's dead." 

Lucy du Bois looked at him as though she 
were suddenly crazed. She seemed uncon- 

206 



DISCORDS 

scious of the growing crowd of people ; she 
only stared at him. A woman, — Ned Shell's 
kindly little wife, — touched her arm, but she 
pushed her from her. 

"Dead — dead — dead," she repeated, in a 
level and hideous staccato. "Then you 
killed him, — you killed him. You ! — Dead- 
dead — dead." She spoke very rapidly; they 
all shivered a little at her tone, and Dick 
shrank from her as though she had struck 
him in the face. 

She approached to within a few feet of 
Pierre, and at looking at him burst out into 
gasping words: 

"Eh, but you should have known! — You 
should have guessed ! — You should have 
come back ! — It was you, only you, all along. 
I was a poor fool, but I 'd have followed you 
if I *d had a notion where you *d gone, Peer. 
I 'd have made amends." 

She turned to Dick. 

"Oh, you fool! You fool!" she said, 
mouthing the words, " not to see as how it 
was him I loved all along. And I was that 
proud of him, too, — murder or not. Do you 
think a woman minds murder if it's her 
man ? It was that he didn't come back, — 

207 



DISCORDS 

he didn't come back — and it broke my heart 
— and I talked against him — I talked against 
him— Oh, my God!' ' 

She pushed the child toward the body. 

" Go on to him, you," she said. " Look at 
him if you like. I ain't good enough.' ' 

" He had grit," said one of the men, stand- 
ing near, to another. " Peer had grit, an' he 
knew his woods." 

"A great man with a settin' pole," said 
the second, " an* a good shot. Don't know 
any man I'd rather have trusted to on a 
trail." 

And such was the passing of Pierre of the 
Woods. 



208 



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The Goose Creek Church 

Limited edition of 150 numbered copies 
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Price, $2.00 



The Lays of a Lawyer 

A collection of Poems. Limited edition 
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made paper. Illustrated rubricated. 

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